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PRINCIPLES 






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ECONOMY* 



the; republic besieged 



BY A- 



Grand Sitting Army 



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O. D. JONSS. 



Ill III I I III I III I I III I I J I || I I I I I I III I I I I I I I II I I I I I I III III I I I I I I II III ■ I i ■ ■ ■ I 1 1 I ■ I I I I I I in I I I I III I I I I I I || 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Chapter I. — Definitions , 4 

II. — Nationalities viewed from without 6 

III.— Church and State 9 

IV.— The State— Its Form of Government 13 

V. — The State — Subject analyzed.™. 17 

VI. — Civilization Creates Demand: 18 

VII. — Demand Stimulates to Labor 24 

VIII. — Labor Produces Capital :. 24 

IX.— Distribution of Wealth 26 

X. — Land and Land Tenure 37 

XI. — Commerce — Transportation 59 

XII. — Money — Nature — Use and Abuse 88 

XIII. — Protection or Free Trade 152 

XIV. — Insurance — Life and Fire 155 

XV. — Paternity and Centralization in Government 159 

XVI.— To Gentlemen of the Bar 162 

XVII.— Strikes and Boycots 166 

'XVIII. — Supply and Demand — Over Production 170 

XIX. — Taxation and License 171 

XX.— Our Sitting Army 186 

Appendix. — „.... ; ' 188 



PRINCIPLES 



Moral ahd Political Economy. 



THE CIVILIZATION OF THE PAST A FAILURE. 



THE CIVILIZATION OF THE PRESENT AN EXPERIMENT ! 



ITS SAFETY TS TN OBEDIENCE TO THE COMMAND: 

'DO UNTO OTHERS AS YE WOULD THAT THEY SHOULD 
DO UNTO YOU." 




O. D. JONSS, 



OF EDINA, MO. 



<1 



Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1 888 ^ 

By 0. D. JONES, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington* 



PREFACE. 



The need of a work on this subject, not written to sustain the 
interests of a class, is the only reason, if one need be given, for this 
attempt. All the works examined on the subject treat only of "po- 
litical economy" or "moral philosophy." We have these nd infini- 
tum — economy s of "supply and demand," "debt and credit," but 
in the main of debt. The above title is chosen for the reason that 
in all the works examined, the two subjects have been studiously di- 
vorced, and for the self-evident fact, that the "political economy" 
of the old schools is bereft all humane or moral sentiment. In a 
true sense no "economy" is politic that is not moral, or any moral 
that is not political. In many instances we have strayed so far from 
fundamental and just principles, we seem as a nation, to have lost 
moral perception and the points of the moral compass. We ask all 
earnest, patriotic right thinking persons to go to the sun dial of the 
moral and political world and then let us as citizens take our moral 
and political reckoning. Let us apply to ourselves, the only safe 
rule of human conduct, in all ages, climes and conditions of life, 
the rule laid down in the twelve words: "Do unto others as ye 
would that they should do unto you." To show that this rule is the 
underlying principle of our social compact and constitution and the 
only enduring rule of conduct that can preserve society and civiliza- 
tion in a dense population, is the aim in this little work. That rule 
is the only one that can act as a lubricant and prevent heating, at 
the centers of population amid the friction of multiplied clashing 
pressed and compressed interests. The intelligent reader of history 
must have observed that all types and degrees of civilization in all 
ages, have only endured, until a certain State of development and 
density of population was reached ; and then the dissolute, immoral 
and oppressive conduct of one class resting and grinding upon an- 
other by the friction of clashing interests caused the whole fabric 
to ignite and burn, with civil strife and commotion to its own de- 
struction. So it was with Chaldean, Persian, Medo Persian, Greek 
and Roman civilization. 

Christian civilization is just now going into the crucible test of 
dense population — that is the test of a nation's morality. The ma- 
terial question, with modern Christian civilization — at its centers is, 
not how wide shall its national boundaries be, but how full can it 
till them. The era of conquest and acquisition of territory has 
passed, the era of filling up has come. The history of the nations 
of antiquity shows, that while they had room to extend their terri- 
tory, they prospered after a fashion. But when that era passed and 



they were confined to their own territories and the day of a dense 
population came ; then it was, that a test was made of their morali- 
ty ; then it was they "were weighed in the balances and found want- 
ing." Like causes, under like circumstances in all ages, climes and 
conditions, produce like effects. Human nature is always the same 
in the aggregate. All we have better than the nations and civiliza- 
tion of the past is, the morality of our Christianity (or our morality 
in the abstract) that leads us, in a measure, at least, "to do to others 
as we would, that they should do to us." 

As our populations become more and more dense, the nearer 
are we compelled, as nations, to approach that standard of "Right- 
eousness," or suffer the consequences. It is no matter of choice, 
it is one of absolute law and dire necessity. 



OUR SUBJECT: 



ft! 



CHAPTER I. 



DEFINITIONS 



1. Principles are eternal; they are God's thoughts, to those 
of us who believe in Him. They indicate to all of us the right way 
of doing. We speak of a law of nature, as that of gravitation ; we 
speak of a principle of human action or conduct. A principle is a 
general rule deduced from a series or group of laws ; it is more 
general and used both in the realms of mind and matter. 

A right principle indicates a right course of conduct, and he 
who attempts to accomplish even a right purpose in violation of es- 
tablished principles will fail. 

It is like an attempt to sail against wind, current and tide. In 
a true sense there is but one great principle underlying and govern- 
ing human conduct, as to our relations to each other, and that is 
embodied in the word, "Do unto others as ye would that they should 
do to you." But there are numerous relations and situations in 
which this principle must be applied. There are many rules of con- 
duct it enforces in particular relations. Here it is only possible to 
formulate these rules, in some of the more important social, prop- 
erty and political relations of life. 

2. Moral! is from the latin word moralis, mos — movies — 
meaning manner or custom. It is now used to denote the aspect of 



5 

human conduct as inherently by right or wrong. A moral economy 
means an honest, a just, a right economy — doing to others as we 
would that they should do to us, in determining between mine and 
thine. 

3. Political! This is a much abused word. As used by the 
masses of the people of this country it means little more than 
"party." Politic, from which it is derived, is a Greek word, mean- 
ing citizen, and relates to his and the States correlative duties and 
the science of the government of men in a state of society. Politi- 
cal economy deals with our material interests and all moral ques- 
tions necessarily involved. To attempt to separately discuss them 
would be like an attempt to discuss the subject of the circulation 
of the blood without reference to the organs of the circulatory sys- 
tem. For all intelligent human action is governed by motives ; and 
morah or motives of right and wrong color every human action in 
life and especially, every course of conduct. 

4. Economy ! The word is composed of two Greek ones that 
mean "house" and "rule" or "law;" or, we might put it the "law 
of the house ;" in its modern sense it is applied to money and ma- 
terial affairs and its sense is now widened to include national and 
financial affairs in these respects. It is now used in the discussion 
of nearly all fiscal relations, always having a sense like rule or sys- 
tem, or facts reduced to order and science. In that sense it indi- 
cates a subject of great and daily growing importance. It must en- 
gage the most solicitous thought of thv statesman and phi- 
lanthropist alike. It pertains primarily to material things. It has 
another, a more important aspect ; viewed alone from that stand- 
point it presents a half, a distorted, a superficial view. 

In this life, we are a connecting link between two worlds, the 
worlds of mind and matter. Our being is a compound of both and 
our field of action reaches into the confines of both. All our great- 
est interests are so interwoven, in the texture, the warp and woof 
of both realms, it is impossible to ravel the fabric and pursue the 
thread of any one great human interest without crossing and re- 
crossing the line. A treatise of the mere moral or material side of 
these questions, presents either, in a distorted view. It is the in- 
termingling of the moral and material interests that make the sum 
total of what we call "political economy." 

Society ! The body, the entity, to which we address our 
thought, from which we deduce and for which we formulate our gen- 
eral rules of conduct, is society. 

The word, in its primary sense, is from the latin word "socious" 
meaning "a companion." In that sense, it is an aggregation of 
human beings remaining together from choice. In that sense there 
might be society without civilization. But the word is only used by 
and applied to civilized men. If we are the offspring of an intelli- 
gent Father and Creator, He intended we should be civilized, and 
it is of his appointment. He is grieved at the savage state of any 
of our race, at least as much as we would be. at beholding any of 



our offspring in such a condition. If, then, civilization is of His ap- 
pointment and desirable ; if it can be maintained only by obedience 
to certain laws as history and observation teach, and our subject 
leads us to seek for and determine, if we may, those rules of con- 
duct, to what more exalted subject could our thoughts be addressed? 



CHAPTER II. 

NATIONALITIES VIEWED FROM WITHOUT. 

A cursry view of society shows it divided into sovereignties, 
states and nations. Our race is clanish. It has descended from 
families, and short-sighted selfishness, in all ages, has lead fractions 
of it to set up boundary lines as the horizon of all political good. 
Over the establishment of these lines, half the wars of the past have 
been waged and half the energies of the nations wasted. But to 
take the race as we find it thus far in our history, political national- 
ities have been a condition precedent to civilization. Society must 
have a focal center at which accretion commences and these centers 
have thus far each given name and character to a nation. It will be 
observed that as commerce and civilization advance the artificial 
chess board, called political geography, at which crowned block- 
heads have played these bloody games, fade into insignificance. A 
true civilization tends to and cannot, but in the end, unify the race. 
The more limited a man's material and intellectual view, the nar- 
rower his horizon, the more jealous he is, of encroachments upon his 
boundaries and "prerogatives." What is true of the individual is 
true of the state or nation, for either is only an aggregation of in- 
dividuals, and the whole cannot become of higher quality than its 
parts, or a stream rise higher than its fountain. War is the princi- 
pal business of men, until they become at least half civilized. As 
they advance in civilization they learn better and desist from such 
employment. Civilization tends to put an end to national contests 
and war for two great reasons. First, because civilization is expen- 
sive and wars between civilized people are more so. Second, the 
higher the degree of the civilization of the people or nation, the 
greater its resources for resistance to an invader and dismember- 
ment of its territories. 

The assailant or invader, all things else equal, is always at a 
disadvantage, and thus natural causes assist and conduce to bring 
about the greatest good to the greatest number, that is to confine 
each nation, or people, to its own allotted and chosen territory. 
True it is the logic and morality of brute force, of two bulls pushing 
with their horns. 

Nevertheless, it is the logic and morality of the doctrine that 
has maintained the degree of peace, that has obtained in Europe for 



the last three hundred years and known as the "balance of the 
powers." 

The only protection the weaker powers of Europe have had for 
that period for their territory is the mutual jealousies of the great- 
er powers. Poor Poland's destiny in that regard fell on an evil day 
when the mutual necessities and fear of England, Austria, Russia 
and Germany of the First Napoleon made them agree, and she was 
mercilessly dismembered and partitioned among them. There can 
be no war of invasion when the true morality of Christianity ob- 
tains and controls. 

Many have been waged in the name and by professed followers, 
but none in the spirit, or by authority of its Founder. According 
to the political economy and morality taught by Him, no war is jus- 
tifiable but that of self-defence. 

He said to one of his followers, "put up thy sword ;" they who 
take the sword shall perish by the sword." That is, they who 
"take," assail with it, are governed by such a spirit of selfishness 
and disregard for other's rights that even if they do not perish on 
the swords of those they assail, they will in the end under the do- 
minion and lead of that spirit turn upon and destroy each other. 
It is a law of human nature emphasized upon the page of history. 
"They that take the sword shall (not may) perish by the sword." 

Those assailed have a right to and will resist and defend. If 
all ceased to "take the sword" ceased to assail with it, none would 
be compelled to defend and no war would be waged. Then "swords 
would be beaten into plough-shares, spears into pruning hooks and 
the nations would learn war no more." 

No more navies, no more forts and arsenals, standing armies to 
levy debts and serfdom on all who remain employed in the avoca- 
tions and arts of peace. The period of danger to nations and civ- 
ilization from wars of invasion and dismemberment is passed. So- 
ciety of states and nations is now threatened by h/side rather than 
outside foes by the waring of their own members." 

There is now, in the Christian civilized world, a well developed 
and powerful entity, known as "the public opinion" of it. 

It consists of what all intelligent right-thinking people as a 
matter of course and almost of instinct think of certain courses of 
conduct. That leads them to condemn the conduct of a great- 
er or a stronger people robbing and oppressing a weaker one, 
because they are able to do it. The government of England lives 
to-day, justly under the ban of that "public opinion." 

For three hundred years it has pursued a uniform course of op- 
pression of all weaker nations that have fallen under its influence 
and control. It is not intended here to enter the field .of interna- 
tional law. Every rule of action and conduct in the dealings and 
relations of nations can be easily deduced and settled for them as 
for individuals, by recurring to the rule, "do to others as ye would 
that they should do to you." The application of that rule would 
take England and France out of China, with their brutal, unjust 



dictation and interference, to enable them to compel that people to 
submit to christian England to destroy them by the importation and 
traffic in opium. It would take England out of India, Egypt and 
Ireland, with its repressive and forceful measures to extort from the 
people of those unhappy countries the fruits of their tod. 

A man or a nation, in the true sense, becomes civilized only in 
the ratio that he learns and becomes willing to concede to others all 
the political and religious rights he claims for himself. Not that he 
accepts every man as a companion, or an equal, in every personal 
relation in life, but is willing and does concede to every other man, 
in his sphere, in the use and exercise of his capacities, whatever they 
may be, all that he claims for himself in the same respects. 

England, of all the nations of the world to-day, presents the 
spectacle of a civilized people, at least who claim to be, but who 
have a half civilized, or less than half civilized, government. The 
morality of that government, for the last three hundred years, has 
not been any better than that of pagan Rome in the zenith of 
the prosperity of the republic, in her dealings with other 
nations. With both it has been only a question of power — the logic 
and morality of brute force. England's methods may have been a 
little more refined, but nevertheless, in the end, in actual results, 
none the less oppressive and cruel. Her maxim has been and still 
is, "the end justifies the means." 

Until the public opinion of the christian civilized world enforces 
a better, a higher morality than that in international relations, how can 
we reasonably expect intelligent Chinamen, men of India or Egypt 
to seek or accept our christian religion? The language of human 
nature is, and will be : away with a religion and faith that teaches 
men to deal with their fellow men as your so-called christian English 
government has dealt and to-day deals with us. 

"The guilty flee where no man pursueth." A robber mistrusts 
that all other men are robbers ; or that the officers will come and 
visit justice on him for his misdeeds. And christian Europe to-day, 
under the yoke of mistrpst, enslaves and makes serfs of its laboring 
class, to erect and maintain forts, arsenals, navies and standing 
armies to protect one christian(?) government against another! It 
presents a spectacle that "crucifies the. Lord afresh and puts Him to 
an open .shame" in the eyes of all true christians. 

These considerations pertain to "moral and political economy ;'* 
they affect us as individuals, states and nations, in our material 
welfare. Our mutual national jealousies and distrusts put the yoke 
of bondage upon us, load us with national expenditures and debts 
that rest down with crushing weight upon the toiling millions. For, 
as we proceed, we shall see they are made the "mud sill," the foun- 
dation upon which rests the entire superstructure of fraud, force, 
oppression and distrust. 



CHAPTER III. 

CHURCH AND STATE. 

The two main factors of society viewed from within a sovereign- 
ty, are the "Church and State." No thoughtful mind can ignore 
this fact. Man is a moral, a religious, a worshipping being. Nor is 
it a characteristic that clings to him only in a savage state ; civiliza- 
tion but seems to cultivate. 

He must, he will have a morality, a religion, better or worse, — 
a God to worship. This predisposition, in all ages, climes and con- 
ditions, when he has attained any degree of civilization, always de- 
velopes some kind of oracle, soothsayer, priesthood or ministry, to 
whom he looks for instruction as to what he ought or ought not to 
do in matters of conscience, and often in matters of state, and for 
revelations as to his hopes for the future. We have Christianity as 
the prevailing religion. As such it has given the name of Christian- 
dom to Western Europe and our own continent. 

The relation of "Church and State," in all ages, has been a 
vexed one. It is both a religious and a political one. But it will 
be observed, it has never been raised until men reach such a stage 
in their national civilization that they begin to demand constitution- 
al guarantees for their rights and liberties, and fixed and known 
rules for the administration of government and justice. Until such 
a period the priesthood usually, as history shows, busy the left hand 
in the ministrations of the altar and things eternal, and the right in 
grasping after the good things of life temporal. While telling the 
faithful, with great unction, to "lay up treasures in heaven, where 
moth and rust do not corrupt nor thieves break through nor steal," 
the priest has been willing to "lay up treasures on earth" and take 
the chances with the moths and thieves, — that is, as a rule. 

A priesthood or ministry are men ; in this respect there has 
been little difference between the priesthood and ministry of Chris- 
tianity and those of other religions. While saying this we are aware 
of many noble and worthy exceptions ; we are now speaking in a gen- 
eral way. If you doubt the statement, look at the religious estab- 
lishments, salaries and sinecures fastened by law upon the people of 
Europe to-day. 

Such a ministry and priesthood as this, has always acknowledged 
the rights of the people to constitutional guarantees against their 
and the State's assumptions and corrupt exactions at the same time 
the temporal authority did ; that is when both were compelled to do 
il by force. The assumption of temporal authority by a Christian 
ministry or priesthood is in violation of the spirit, precept and ex- 
ample of its Founder. He claimed no superior rights for himself 
or his, even as a subject, much less any claims to civil authority. He 
sent Peter to catch the fish to get the "penny" to pay Cresar's 
"tax" for "me and there" "lest they be offended." He did not 



10 

attempt to establish any but a moral government in the world. 
When Peter "drew his sword and struck a servant of the high 
priest and smote off his ears," Jesus said unto him "put up again, 
thy sword into his place, for all they that take the sword shall perish by 
the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my father and 
he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?" 
— Mathew 26 Chapter, verses 51, 52, 53. As much as to say I do 
not seek the victory of an Alexander, or a Caesar, the victory of 
physical or animal forces; my battles and warfare are, in a higher 
sphere, on a nobler plain, my triumph shall be a moral one. 

Jn answer to Pilate's question he made it plain, "Art thou the 
king of the Jews" said Pilate? "Jesus answered, my kingdom is 
not of this world ; if my kingdom were of this world then would my 
servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now 
is my kingdom not from hence." — John, 18 chapter, verses 33-36. 
He directly declined all jurisdiction over temporal matters. "And 
one of the company said unto him, Master speak to my brother 
that he divide the inheritance with me, and he said unto him. man 
who made me a judge or a divider over you?" — Luke, chapter 12, 
verses 13-14. He refused all semblance of temporal authority. 
"When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take 
him by force to make him a king he departed again, into a moun- 
tain himself alone." — John, chapter 6, verse 15. Again he said : 
"Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man." — John, chapter 8, 
verse 15. 

"If any man hear my words and believe not, I judge him not; 
for I came not to judge the ivorld, but to save the world." — John, 
chapter 12, verse 47. "But Jesus called them unto him (his disci- 
ples) and said, ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise 
dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority over 
them." "But it shall not be so among yov: but whosoever will be 
great among you, let him be your minister ; and whosoever will be 
chief among you, let him be your servant; even as the son of man 
came not to be ministered unto, bvt to minister and to give his life a 
ransom for money." — Matthew, chapter 20, verses 25-6-7-8. "And 
when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God 
shall come, he answered them and said, the kingdom of God com- 
eth not with observation." 

"Neither shall they say lo here! lo there! for the kingdom of God 
is within you." 

It is not in palaces "Bishoprics," "Archbishoprics" lordly 
state and princely incomes of my lords spiritual? who rob the widow 
and the fatherless to live in the style and make a display of himself 
in the togery, fuss and feathers of the crowned block-heads, who 
for centuries have ruled and robbed Europe. 

It was a greedy, covetous hypocrite who sold him to the "chief 
priests," for thirty pieces of silver." He said of himself "the foxes 
have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man hath 
not where to lay his head." 



11 

If he was poor and "came not to be ministered unto" but "to 
minister" who as a priest shall command his brethren to minister 
unto him? so he may live like the "Gentiles who exercise authority." 
If he refused to be a "judge and divider" who of his ministers 
shall? If he refused to be "crowned" who of them shall don that 
insignia (usually) of a block-head; the greatest secular kings even 
have refused to wear them. "Ye call me Master and Lord : and ye 
say well ; for so am I." 

"If I then your Lord and Master have washed your feet; ye 
also ought to wash one another's feet." 

"For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have 
done to you." 

"Verily I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his lord ; 
neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him." — Verses 13- 
14-15-16, chapter XIII of John. 

If he washed his disciples' feet, who of them shall put on the 
airs of potentates and sit on "a piece of velvet stretched over a few 
pieces of wood" as a throne? 

In fact they have and many still do "rob the widow and the 
fatherless" and "for a pretense make long prayers." 

The Christian Church is the means used to propagate his doc- 
trines in the world ; it is that, or it is worse than nothing ; it is an 
imposter. Its labors are to build up a kingdom, not of benefices, 
sinecures and livings, where greedy hypocrites oppress the people ; 
not a kingdom of armies, navies, and imposing arrays of things 
"that come by observation ;" but a kingdom of peace on earth and 
good will to men ;" to teach men it is right and better in the long 
run to *'do to others as ye would that men should do to you," in all 
things. 

Its jurisdiction is clearly defined by its Immortal Fovf/der. If 
he, in the face of persecution and ignominious death would not use 
legions of angels to defend himself, what mangy, cowardly, greedy, 
bloody minded, cruel or ignorant wretch, as a pretended follower, 
in the centuries after him, had the right to "urge holy wars" of ex- 
termination against both "infidels" and "Christians." If he 
"judged no man," who of them had jurisdiction to send men to be 
roasted at the stake to appease their bigoted cruelty. Christ in- 
flicted no physical or civil penalties, waged no war, nor permitted 
any to be waged in his name. 

The church nor its ministers have any authority to do either ; 
they go beyond the bounds of their high calling when they attempt 
it. And history shows that when a clergy has once seated itself in 
the saddle of secular power, over the people, it has in all ages, been 
the most cruel and brutal of all classes of riders and tyrants. 

Their tyranny always has had a specie of ferocity no where else 
displayed. And this may be easily accounted for we think. From 
the nature of his calling, no one withstood the priest or minister in 
his teachings and ministration. 

If men differ with him they usually do it or have in the past 



12 

done it in silence. A priesthood or ministry are only men, with all 
the natural frailties of men. This very fact of their not being with- 
stood in their discourses and being required to "give a reason for 
the faith in them," leads them in their very habits of thought and 
expression of it to grow dogmatical. 

If he has authority in temporal things he will carry these very 
feelings and habits of thought into them and his administration of 
affairs will be as dogmatic as his habits of thought and religious 
teaching. It is natural and his axiom he makes matter of religion 
and conscience in secular as well as spiritual things. The offices of 
the church in relation to the administration of temporal affairs, in- 
deed, in all her real spheres, in relation to men is like that of a true 
mother to a wayward adult son. 

She admonishes and appeals to him by all his ties ; she tries to 
win him from his evil habits ; she sets before him the penalties here 
and hereafter for bad conduct and crime ; the rewards of good con- 
duct and living here and hereafter ; she attempts to make him a good 
law-abiding citizen and prevent his crime. But when an overt act 
of crime is committed and civil penalties are incurred, and the po- 
lice (or the State) takes him in hand by actual force, she hides her 
face in shame and sorrow ; she may follow him to the prison to ad- 
monish and minister, to the scaffold even to see him die. 

But she does not want to pull off his nails or pinch or roast his 
flesh, no matter how great a "heretic" or how great his crime. 

She does not enjoy the smell of roasting flesh of martyrs, for 
their opinion, or the scenes of a St. Bartholomew. That priests and 
ministers in her name have presided at such orgies is true. But it 
was when and where she was, as it were, unsexed, debauched, or 
truly it was not herself at all ; it was a shameful exhibition of what 
came and comes, yes and would come again from centuries of union 
of church and state. As a union it is like incest ; it is pollution and 
degradation of both. It is no use, as believers or unbelievers to 
review the past in a spirit of bitterness or acrimony. But we must 
all do it, for its truth. 

As Catholics or protestants, or neither, all of us as citizens of 
the world's republic in the light of the history and truths of the 
past, it behooves us one and all to brook with no degree of allow- 
ance, any daliance even that looks like union of church and state. 

My church can no more be entrusted with "establishment" or 
any secular assistance, advantage or union with the State, than 
yours or any one, more than another. 

Christ himself claimed no superior or political advantages over 
any man, when he was here among men. He taught men to "do to 
others as we would that they should do to us" in all things; who of 
us if actuated and directed by his spirit wants any advantage over 
any one, whether he believes as we do or not? 

Indeed, as soon as we display such a spirit, we prove we "are 
none of his." 

These are considerations that come home to us all, and the fact 



of unions of church and state still exists, that is an "established" 
church, one supported by taxes levied on men, who do not believe, 
in or attend at her ministrations — that too in a county that has more 
political influence in this country than any other ; that too in a coun- 
try that claims to be the great "civilizer" of the world, but that in 
fact is not half civilized herself. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE STATE ITS FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 

The history of the world presents three distinct forms of hu- 
man government ; three steps the race has taken in its struggle for 
and toward civilization, each one taken in blood, tears and ashes ; 
each one has required centuries to take it and each fades into the 
other, by almost imperceptible shades of difference. (1). Was the 
patriarchial or monarchial, the one man absolute as the source of 
all political law-making, interpreting and executing power. History 
shows the law to be, that the less the one man, the monarch knows, 
the more wives he must have, the more solicitous he is as to what 
he shall eat and drink and "wherewithal he shall be clothed," the 
palace in which he shall reside and the tomb in which his carcass 
shall finally be stowed. And there is always a direct ratio between 
his ignorance and the degree of jealousy shown for "any encroach- 
ments upon his prerogative ." The Czar of Russia, the Khedive of 
Egypt, as agent and resident attorney for the English government, 
the Emperor of China, the Governor-General of India and the King 
of Dahominy, I believe are the most considerable personages among 
men now contending for such honor. 

The absolute monarchy is the government of animal force, 
with or without "the consent of the governed." (2). The consti- 
tutional monarchy or Empire of which England is supposed to be 
the highest type. Her constitution is no more or less than a his- 
tory of the struggle of the people with the absolute covetousness, 
lust of power of her monarchs and the class of retainers who al- 
ways surrounded them. 

It is the written history and tradition of the struggle of the 
mind, brain and heart, the intelligence of the people for their natu- 
ral and political rights. 

The more the greed of the monarch and his retainers have 
been checked and confined to bounds the more "constitutional" the 
government is. But as in the absolute so in theory, in that form of 
government, the "crown" is the source of political law-making, in- 
terpreting and executing power. Violations of law are "against the 
peace of the king;" "the King can do no wrong" for the satisfac- 
tory reason no matter what he does it is politically right. 

The functions of government are exercised as "grants from the 



14 

crown;" the charters of corporations are "franchises granted by the 
crown." Those who administer that form of government are the 
"agents" of the crown. That is to say a "constitutional monarchy" 
is an absolute one, with the horns sawed off. It is savage dog with 
a muzzle on ; a beast ferae natura, but chained so it cannot rend 
and tear. 

A half civilized people may be unable to appreciate or even sus- 
tain one any better. But a civilized people capable of self-govern- 
ment are only scandalized, hampered, retarded in all worthy human 
endeavors by it, and they ought to shed it as half civilized men shed 
their habiliments of skins, their clubs, bows and poisoned arrows, 
as they struggle on and up to the light and plain of a civilized life. 
(;!). We have the Republican, the latest in point of time the no- 
blest of them all. The only form that recognizes both the Father- 
hood of God and the Brotherhood of man. The other forms may 
recognize the former premise, but it changed the second to read 
"the guardianship of man" "by divine right." The Brotherhood 
of man must be acknowledged as the foundation of equal political 
rights, whether we reach it, as many of us do as a deduction from 
the premise of the Fatherhood of God or by some other mode of 
reasoning as many good citizens do. The mode of reasoning by 
which we do it is not so material, so we reach the world's platform 
of political rights. "Do unto others as ye would that they should 
do to you." "The inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pur- 
suit of happiness" secured in our constitution, were not snatched, 
a few, or one at a time, by "rebellious subjects," from the hands of 
a raving or grumbling monarch, more than half given away in a dis- 
graceful compromise. 

Our Revolutionary Fathers, after contending for twenty years 
with the beastial, covetous, lust and assumptions of the English 
government, for some of the alleged rights of Englishmen, under the 
glorious( ?) constitution ; after being denied even these ; after their 
"repeated petitions" had been treated with repeated insult and they 
had been "spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne," 
arose, at last, in the name of their God-given manhood, and, in the 
terms of the immortal Declaration of Independence, said. — You can 
have, gentlemen, just what you can take over our dead bodies — 
"We appeal to arms and the God of hosts, all that is left us now." 
They made a bold declaration of. and strike for, the political right a 
of man. They declared nor waged any war of invasion, only one of 
self defense. Nor was there anything new or especially meritorious 
in the mere "appeal to arms" in the defense of their liberties. Men 
have done that in all ages. But there was something new in the 
declaration of independence as the foundation and platform upon 
winch they did it. It was, and still is, new in the history of the 
world. It is in these words : "We hold these truths to be self-evi- 
dent, that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their 
creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights 



15 

governments are instituted among men deriving their just /towers, 
by the consent of the governed ; — that when any form of govern- 
ment becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the people 
to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its 
foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such 
forms as to them seem most likely to effect their safety and happi- 
ness." That declaration, in that sense, as the platform of an "ap- 
peal to arms," was new in the history of the world. 

By it our fathers said, if we succeed in this ''appeal to arms" 
it is in self defense : we have no war of invasion to wage. For "all 
men are created equal ;" none are born with the spurs on, or a gold 
spoon in their mouths. In this appeal to arms, or any we are com- 
pelled to make in self defense, we ask, nor demand any civil, religi- 
ous or political right that we are unwilling to concede to our assail- 
ants and the rest of mankind ; — -that is, they declared the grand 
truth and principle that if they succeeded and did become great and 
powerful by repulsing their assailants and oppressors, they would 
not in their turn become assailants and oppressors of their oppress- 
ors, or any one else. 

The history of the world, until then, shows that those who have 
"appealed to arms" for their liberties and have become successful, 
did it on a principle that as soon as their oppressor was repulsed 
and they gained strength to do it, they, in turn, became oppressors. 
Iu a word, the declaration of independence is an application to the 
political rights and relations of man, of the principle embodied in 
the twelve words, "Do unto others as ye would that they should do 
to you." And in that fact, only, is it greater than any and all oth- 
er political documents until that time. That is the corner stone of 
the republic ; in that lies the secret of its success, and in obedience 
ro that principle, only, is there safety and perpetuity. No war of 
invasion can be waged to impose government of any form on anoth- 
er people, for "all just government is by the consent of the govern- 
ed ;" or to take or dismember their territory is the same thing. 

Our country never has openly and flagrantly violated this grand 
principle but once in its history. That was in its shameful and das- 
tardly raid upon the sister Republic of Mexico for territory upon 
which to extend the institution of human slavery. It was a slave- 
holder's unrighteous raid for slave territory. But we bled as a na- 
tion for it. We paid bitterly for every concession made to the slave 
power, and for this among the rest. 

The constitution of the United States is the application of that 
principle to government — an attempt to put it into practice It may 
he asked. What has the form of government to do with the subject 
in hand? Much in ours; in the constitutional monarchy, less ; 
in the absolute, since there can be no fixed rules, perhaps nothing. 

But, with us, "all just government is by the consent of the 
governed;" taxes, and all burdens levied upon the citizen for its 
support, are by his consent, and any tax or burden not levied by 
direct authority from the constitution is not by his consent, and he 



16 

is under no obligation to pay it. And it is not only his right but 
it is a duty to resist any and all such ; for they are encroachments 
upon his rights. If one may be thus taken, all may. And such is 
the history and nature of power, especially in money and financial 
matters, that to "give it an inch it will take an ell ;" it knows no 
bounds. Our constitution is a contract, a compact to which society 
as a unit and each citizen are parties. In its spirit and true intent 
"the wrong of one is the cause of all. In it we have (1) an enu- 
meration of the general powers granted by each citizen to the gov- 
ernment. (2). An enumeration of the rights to be guaranteed by 
the government in return to the citizen. Of course it deals as to 
both the powers and rights in general terms. The powers granted 
and the rights to be secured are correlative ; one is granted for the 
greater good to come, in protection of the other. The citizen yields 
(1) the original natural right of dividing and atomizing society into 
states, or smaller, or any fractions, each one "to be a law unto 
itself," and accepts in lieu thereof the aggregating compact of "we, 
the people of the United States ;" that makes us a distinct sover- 
eignty, a nation, to be governed in national matters by the will of 
the majority, not of a fraction, but of the w7ioJe. (2). He yields 
the right to redress his wrongs; that is the administration of justice. 
(3). He yields his natural right of personal barter of the products 
of his labor, and accepts the oflices of his government in the regula- 
tion of commerce, instead. (4). He yields the control of all rela- 
tions of his government to others ; and he retains to himself and his 
state all powers not expressly granted in the constitution. These 
powers he cedes to his government to better his condition. He has 
parted with all power over them ; if the government does not accept 
and execute them they are, so far as he is concerned, annihilated in 
effect. It is a part of the compact that it does accept them and un- 
dertakes to execute them. 

But there are terms and limitations upon these grants of power. 
One of these express limitations is, that they are not granted in 
solido to the government ; but they are granted in the light of the 
experience of mankind in three distinct classes to the three subor- 
dinate branches or departments of government, created and recog- 
nized by the constitution. The laws of the human mind and the 
experience of mankind in the science of civil government, naturally 
divides its functions into three departments or classes of agents, in 
the government of men by law. In the tirst place there must be 
law ; in the second place it must be executed. Then there must be 
a department of government, a class of agents whose duty it is to 
formulate and enact it. Second, to interpret and apply it to the 
cases as they arise. Third, after the law is made, interpreted, and 
its judgment rendered, a department and class whose duty it is to 
execute it. Hence, in the constitution, all power over the subject 
of law-making is granted by the citizens in Section 1 of Ariticle I. 
of the Constitution, in these words: "All legislative powers herein 
"ranted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which 



17 

shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives." And 
no other body or person, under the constitution, can formulate and 
enact any law on any subjegt or "power herein granted" that a cit- 
izen is under any obligation to obey. The law interpreting and ad- 
ministering power is granted in these words in Section 1 of Article 
III. of the Constitution: "The judicial power of the United States 
shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as 
the Congress may from time to time establish." And no other of- 
ficer or department of the government has the power to interpret 
the law and render a judgment that a citizen is under obligations to 
obey, than a court established under this grant. 

The power to execute the laws is granted in Section 1. Article 
II. of the Constitution, in these words: "The Executive powers 
shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." 

It will be seen that in each one of this trinity of granting 
clauses, the word "vested" is used. It was not a matter of chance 
that it was done. It- means these departments were clothed with 
and possessed of these powers, so they could not be divested of 
them. Nor are they authorized to grant or sublet the exercise of 
the respective functions reposed in them to another, ov even to each 
other ; and the Supreme Court of the United States in construing 
the constitution has always so held. 

This subject will be resumed under the head of Commerce, 
Transportation and Money. We shall then see that this principle 
his been, and is to-day, flagrantly violated. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE STATE oil: SUBJECT ANALYZED. 

When we view society and the State for the purpose of a study 
of our subject, the following order of thought is evolved : 

1. Civilization creates demand. 

2. Demand stimulates to labor.* 

3. Labor produces property — wealth. 

This is the first stage and the order of the growth of a commu- 
nity, or state in civilization. Nature spontaneously produ- 
ces enough to subsist a sparse but not a dense population. It must 
have human labor, some wealth and some degree of civilization. It 
can only be supported by the fruits of the toil of human hands. Un- 
til human labor becomes the rule, there is little civilization and lit- 
tle wealth. 

Wealth or capital is not civilization — but there can be but little 
without it and there can be ho civilization without labor. 

Wealth is a means to an end. It ceases to be even that when 
its distribution is so unjust, it all lodges in the hands of a few or a 
class. For then the motive to intelligent human labor, the expecta- 



18- 

tion of enjoying- its reward is taken away and in the ratio it is done, 
labor will at first complain, become factious and in the end cease. 

The problem of problems that tq-day stares Christendom in the 
face is that of the just distribution of wealth, the fruits of labor. 
It is one no civilization has ever solved. Its presentation to those 
of the past, has been to them, the noontide hour of their zenith 
prosperity and from that period they have started on the track of a 
sure, swift decline. At this point they have reached a majority that 
cast on them responsibilities they were unable to comprehend and 
solve. Here all of them confront the questions. Land and Land Ten- 
ure, Transportation and Money, if any they have of any importance, 
and these three great subjects: 1. Land and Land Tenure. 2. 
Transportation. 3. Money, its nature, use and abuse, are always 
the three great factors in the subject of the distribution of wealth. 

They stand like inscriptions on the head-stones of the civiliza- 
tions of the past. 

Thus our subject naturally divides into three Trinities, (1), the 
three departments of government, (2), civilization demands capital, 
(3), land, transportation, money. 



CHAPTER VI. 

CIVILIZATION CREATES DEMAND. 

Civilization is a taming process ; it reclaims and brings men 
back from a savage state. It shows them they are cold, naked, ig- 
norant and blind. 

The ruder and more barbaric a people, the fewer their wants 
and more easily supplied. They use things as nearly as possible, 
just as nature presents them. They live upon game and wild fruits, 
dress in the skins of animals and use no implements but the most 
primitive, have no habitation but the rudest huts. 

But as a people advance in intelligence and civilization, their 
wants and demands multiply In the same ratio. Objects, as nature 
presents them, no longer meet their requirements. They demand 
greater variety in the kinds and preparation of food, they throw 
away the undressed skins of animals and call for clothing; the bark, 
cane, or mud hut disappears and some kind of a house is erected. 
All these necessaries require improved implements in their construc- 
tion ; these to cut must be made of iron and steel, and soon through 
the different departments of industry and consumption. 

The first effort will be to supply the necessaries of life and af- 
ter this is accomplished, then there is a desire to possess the luxu- 
ries. These cost more than the necessaries, as their production re- 
quires a higher degree of skill in the laborer who produces them. 

Civilization is expensive, it quickens all the perceptions and 
capabilities of the human mind, wakens new desires, creates new 



1!) 

demands and necessities, which in time will be supplied. As taste 
is cultivated and men make advancement in the arts and sciences, 
wants and demands for manufactured and artistic articles are multi- 
plied. Also intellectual activity calls for intellectual food, and not- 
withstanding- of "the making of many books there is no end," yet 
the cry is for more. So that in countries, the people of which were 
before employed in hunting, fishing, tending herds, or may be agri- 
culture alone, varieties of employment spring up to meet the in- 
creasing demands of civilization. Either the civilized nation must 
manufacture for itself, or pay heavy tribute to those that do. If it 
deals in producing the raw material alone, then it is a ''hewer of 
wood and a bearer of burdens" for those who do its manufacturing. 
It must furnish sufficient for its own wants and to pay those who 
work for it, thus exhausting it natural resources of raw material, 
while the manufacturing people invest in nothing but their labor. 

To be truly civilized a people not only must be so in their modes of 
living but also in their state and dispositions of mind. A robber is 
not in a true sense civilized ; he is a destroyer of civilization. If all 
men followed his example no matter how refined may be his meth- 
ods or his manner of living, civil society could not exist. No man is 
civilized whose example and course of conduct if universally fol- 
lowed would destroy society. In such case it exists in spite of him, 
if at all. 

A robber would be harmless alone on an island ; it is his viola- 
tion of his relations to others that makes him detestable. For soci- 
ety to exist certain rules must he obeyed. 

Civilization consists in and cannot exist without mutual trust 
confidence and concession among men. It clothes men and puts 
them in their right minds. In its highest states a man as to all his 
temporal wants and necessities and interests is compelled, literally 
"to walk by faith and not by sight." As to nearly all he eats and 
drinks, he knows nothing of it or its preparation, its cleanliness or 
healthfulness. only as he trusts to those who prepare it. If he goes 
to buy a piece of land he knows the title to it can only be shown by 
the record ; it is made and kept by men and it takes an expert to 
even make an abstract of what the record shows and to tell him 
whether his title is good, even after the abstract is made. So when 
he sends or receives a message over the wire ; he puts his life in the 
keeping of his fellow men every time he boards a steamboat, ship 
or car. He banks his money and buys drafts on the basis of faith. 

As to mutual concessions when there was not a man to the 
square mile, few were required, little matter how filthy his pig sty, 
soap factory, or when or how he disposed < f his offal or filth. But, 
when others crowded around him and his accumulations of filth, bad 
smells and sights poisoned and offended them and bred disease, then 
society commands him to clear away his ugly sights and clean up 
his bad smells. 

Civilized society crowds men — rubs them together — it does, it 
must rub off the square sharp corners of short-sighted selfishness. 



20 

the knots and unseemly deformities of savage and rude barbarity. 
As population grows more and more dense, the earth is occupied by 
individual holdings, the wild fruits and games and fuels that were 
common disappear, and soon the only source of supply of human 
necessities becomes the ministering hand of human toil. Every- 
thing of that kind must be produced or bought. In a civilized 
dense population there are only three ways for a human being to 
procure "the means whereby we live." First. By earning and ren- 
dering an equivalent. Second By gift or charity. Third. By rob- 
bery. He may rob according to law. If "all men are created 
equal" one man. as to natural rights occupies a place as advanta- 
geous as another. No one has the natural, or any right to quarter 
himself on Ids fellow-men. as a pensioner. And if one man by 'law 
or custom is permitted to thus put himself and family on the rest of 
society, from generation to generation exempt from the natural hu- 
man burden of daily and yearly producing or in any way rendering 
an actual equivalent for their subsistence, then something is wrong. 

One thing is clear — somebody is doing to others as he would 
not that they should do to him. If men obeyed that precept no 
one would appropriate something for nothing unless as a charity; 
Every person of right thinking admits that law custom or institu- 
tion in society that enables one person to do to others as he would 
not that they should do to him, is unjust. Christendom seems to 
read those words with many "mental reservations" and "ease its 
conscience" (if it has any) that way." Those words are a com- 
mand if they are anything. It reads "do" — -"do" to others," your 
contemporary fellow-men — not to angels in the next, but to men in 
this world. It is in the imperative mode. It does not read: if it 
suits your convenience: if you are so poor, weak and uninfluential 
yon cannot do otherwise — selfish hypocrites read that between the 
lines. It is a command as much and as plain as any one or all of 
the ten commandments. Indeed it is the summing up of "the law 
and the prophets" by Christ himself as to whole duty of man to 
man. "Thou shalt love * * thy neighbor as thyself." He was 
a great political as well as religious teacher. 

That one precept would "leaven the whole lump." of civiliza- 
tion and take all the deadly taint and virus of injustice out of it. 
He made no mistake, lie understood "what is in man." Those words 
not only embody a moral precept but a law that is and becomes an actual 
a military necessity to men in a dense population. He never re- 
tracted or qualified them : that command was given in the light of 
the selfishness, of human nature. No other law can preserve hu- 
man society ; as it grows denser and denser men are rubbed closer 
and closer together, all their interests become woven and interwov- 
en into its warp and woof, as the very means of existence come to 
depend daily more and more upon mutual trust, concession, it is 
eompelled, is driven to that rule of conduct or to destruction. If 
each is governed by short-sighted selfishness and distrust, they be- 
come more and more repellant, the atoms repel and disintegration 



21 

must follow. Christ's law is the attraction of gravitation, the only 
power that can hold society together The imperfect obedience to 
it, in Christendom, is all has held it in even its present loose bonds. 

It is clear to be seen, as populations grow dense, the oftener is 
the rule called in question, the oftener obeyed or disobeyed and the 
nearer must society approach that standard of "righteousness" as 
nations. To illustrate : You enter an empty railway coach, you 
may deposit your baggage on two seats on one side, turn two to- 
gether on the other and recline at ease. All goes well — no one dis- 
putes your appropriations. Anon your train pulls into a town 
where everybody and his girl are going on "picnic excursion." 
There is a rush, many a squeeze, "soft eyes look to eyes that speak 
again and all goes merry" as ten weddings on wheels. You and 
your luggage are unceremoniously stowed in the off end of a single 
seat and the fat woman and her band-boxes, etc., are stowed on you 
to make room. You are surprised at how little space you can occu- 
py. You are all on good behavior, as to humor "at least. You must 
all be careful to keep off each other's corns and elbows or smile po- 
litely "no harni." You are compelled to accommodate yourself to 
a new situation. 

And the sooner you do, the sweeter the spirit of love, charity 
and decency in which you accommodate yourself to that situation the 
better time you will have for the rest of your journey. As citizens 
we are all on board for a ride, from the cradle to the grave. Of late 
Christendom seems to be going on a picnic. The coaches are filling 
up. Everybody, his girl, the old folks and his wife and children 
are coming on, all squeezing in, they must — they will go. Congress 
may stop the mints of the United States and the coinage of silver to 
to please bankers and usurers, but it cannot stop the mints of 
heaven and the coinage of babies. They will obey the command, 
"go forth, multiply and replenish the earth," even if they obey no 
other; they will "multiply" even if there is no place to "go forth" 
to. when they can no longer "go west young man and grow up 
with the country." 

A few passengers who were first, or who claim through 
tickets, a little better than first-class, are making wry faces 
at the new order of things. Here is a gouty, bloated, short-winded 
choleric old fogy who wears a number five hat and number sixty 
pants, who wants "to own all the land joining him," but he never 
had capacity to cultivate forty acres of land intelligently. He de- 
mands four seats and displays his passes, all free, clear through 
with great gusto. Here sits a personage, whose anatomy and 
physique are made up of teeth, gullet, pocket and stomach ; he dis- 
dains to look at anybody — he is a law unto himself. He bought a 
license to run this train and anybody who don't like his way of riding 
can get off — he will carry his bottles and brandy on this train — he 
demands four seats for accommodation of the liquor traffic. 

Here in the rear of the coach sits a personage whose affidavit 
f ace savs : "I thank God I am not as other men" and "devour 



22 

widows' houses" and "for a pretence makes long prayer." He is the 
pious, deaconized passenger of the crew by all odds. Disturb him 
to give the common herd of picnicers a seat? He owns this road 
and the county through which it runs; no indeed, shylock would put 
the conductor (the government) off the traiu, for such impertinence. 
His gout, bunions, bags and baggage take four seats. So the inno- 
cent herd of picnicers for a while stand around in the aisles and 
stare at empty seats and each others vacant faces. They are stand- 
ing up yet. But they are growing restless. Soon the}' will hustle 
their gouty brutal fellow passengers. They refuse to do to others 
as they would have others to do to them. They will have to get on 
good behavior as other people. 

In obedience to those words is our only bow of promise, "of 
peace on earth and good will to men." They have a counterpart, 
an alternative, a consequence of disobedience as all such have. And 
it is as positive as unqualified. 

It is in these words : "Judge not that ye be not judged, for 
with what judgment ye judge, ve shall be judged and with what 
measure ye mete'it shall be measured to you again." If you will not 
do to others as you would they should do to you ; if the only limit 
to the advantages you will take of your fellow-men is that of unjust 
law or force ; if with you might makes right, you had better beware. 
For after awhile, it may be long delayed ; but after awhile it will 
come and men will "judge" you by your own code and law; they 
will try you in your own court and "with what judgment ye judged 
ye shall be judged," and you will have no right to complain; if you 
do men "will laugh at your calamity and mock when your fear Com- 
eth." After awhile when you are corpulent, helpless and over-fed 
upon the fruits of your injustice by doing to others as ye would not 
they should do to you, they will come back to you, and they will do 
to you as you have done to them, and "with what measure ye mete 
it shall be measured to you again." That is the law as unalterable, 
as that the rivers worry, fret, murmur and hurry on, retarded at 
times, but they will finally get to the gulfs, the ocean. You might 
as well remonstrate or fight against the law of gravitation. You 
have to take the consequences of violated law or stand from under 
its penalties. You may howl and shriek all the names of the lan- 
guage at those who murmur of your injustice to them ; you may 
launch "tramp-laws" anathemas, excommunications, executions 
at them, but the murmur will rise higher and higher, the cloud 
grow blacker and they will come. Christ said they would — human 
nature says they will — it is a law planted in it to preserve it against 
tyrants. History shows they have come ; yes, and came with a ven- 
geance ; came to stay. And when you think a moment, they have 
the same right, yea more, to come back and avenge these wrongs 
yon had to assail and commit wrong ; you had to do to them as ye 
would not have them do to you. The language of Christ, of rea- 
son, of human nature, of the red page of history, to Christendom of 
to-day, is "agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art in the 



way with him," "do to others" justly while you may, before the is- 
sue grows so sharp it comes to blows. The man who knowingly re- 
fuses to be governed by that law laid down by Christ cannot claim 
to be a Christian ; he cannot be a good citizen, he is an anarchist of 
the worst type. No matter what other professions he makes, wheth- 
er arrayed in Senatorial toga or Sacerdotal gown ; his example and 
influence leads to mutual distrust, to refusal of mutual or any con- 
cession to negative all the fundamental conditions of civilization to 
solitary chaos and that is the very essence of anarclry. 

No matter what such a man claims his fellowmen owe him, he 
denies he owes them or society anything, at least its due. On that 
platform, he appeals to force — or an unjust law. And on that plat- 
form to force sooner or later it will come. Intelligent men will have 
no respect for unjust rules and laws any longer than they retain the 
hope of repealing them by constitutional and peacable means 
When that hope is destroyed by the army of aggressors by subvert- 
ing or prostituting the constitutional means, if they have any spirit 
left, then and there they will meet injustice and force with force. 

Then society has two prospects spread before it It is on the 
confines of the red sands and lurid sunset of the ashy desert of an- 
archy ; or, by a baptism of blood and lire to enter through the gates 
of civil revolution to a nobler civilization, to a plain where men wil- 
lingly, or, by enforced obedience, come nearer the precept of doing 
to others as they would they should do to them. In either event, 
the votaries of greed and injustice are punished. A man who in 
theory and practice denies the obligation of obedience to that basic 
rule is unlit for human society. 

He puts his fellow-citizens to one or the other of two alterna- 
tives: to bear the impositions of himself and class or resist his and 
their assaults by force. And it only remains for men of sense and un- 
derstanding to defend themselves against him and his class, as they 
would against a savage or a beast of prey, by an appeal, if necessary 
to the only laws recognized by them, that is the law of force. 

He and his class are the same, no matter where they are found, 
no matter whether clad in the robes of clerical or secular power, or 
entrenched behind the bulwarks of laws, customs, and institutions, 
hoary with age, or clad in the rags of the clown or miser. As a 
ch'ss. they say, I am better than thou, I have a right to something 
for nothing. Age is not a sure sign of justice or certificate of a 
right, of a custom, law or institution to exist. If so, polygamy, 
slavery, robbery, absolute monarchy, rapine and slaughter can pre- 
sent the credentials. 

While civilization creates demand for all its accompaniments, 
yet whether it will be a permanent and healthy one ; whether it will 
be supplied, or if supplied done on such terms it can continue, all 
depends upon moral as well as physical causes And the moral is 
in this, the anterior one. the cause of causes. 



24 

CHAPTER VII. 

DEMAND STIMULATES TO LABOR. 

Civilized necessit} T makes an inventory of the things needed. 
Demand as here used is the desire, for, coupled with an effort to 
obtain them. It is a natural hunger for other than the accompani- 
ments of a savage life Appetite stimulates to effort to procure the 
means to satisfy and human labor is the only means by which it can be 
acquired. There can be no civilization without human labor. ■ 

Its only intelligent stimulant is the expectation of enjoying its 
reward. If the laborer is met with either one of two probabilities ; 
first, that from natural laws and causes his labor will produce no re- 
ward ; or, second, if it does, it will be taken from him his stimulant to 
engage in it diminishes in the ratio that he becomes satisfied either 
one of the propositions are true. It is as natural as that a hungry 
man will cease to make an effort for food, as he sees the chances to 
gain it slip away from him. As a rule nature and her laws respond 
to the hand of toil. The toilers do not despond or distrust because 
of her laws. It is the artificial customs, laws and institutions of so- 
ciety, that robs labor of its just reward. They depend on moral or 
rather immoral causes. It is man's inhumanity to man that makes 
countless millions mourn" and threatens the civilization of to-day 
with many dangers. When the laborer is deprived of the just re- 
ward of his toil, he by force of circumstances ceases to be a consu- 
mer. And thus again as it always does, we find that short-sighted 
greed and oppression "destroys the goose that lays the golden egg." 
If he is once denied his just reward, the rule is, it is the nature of 
injustice to go on to the last end of an extreme, until the laborer 
is barely permitted to retain enough to exist. 

It is the dictates of even greed and injustice to do that. But 
there, yes and long before he gets there, the laborer is only a slave 
— he lives with no hope — the future is to him a diminishing, a van- 
ishing prospect. One of two things must soon follow. Either he 
became a tame soulless slave "whipped to the task," in whose labor 
there is no profit ; or he will come out, like a she tiger robbed of her 
whelps, and then woe betide his despoiler. In either event the es- 
tablished state of things must give way. Civilization stimulates to 
labor. Whether it will continue to do it, depends upon whether 
the labor is permitted to reap its just reward. That is the ever re- 
curring problem left for us to solve. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



LABOR PRODUCES CAPITAL. 



"Labor is prior to and above capital and deserves much the 
greater consideration." — [Lincoln. 



Think one moment. What other agency can produce capital? 

( Japital is the fruit of labor — a surplus, more than is needed for 
the present, and laid away for future use. Labor is living, think- 
ing, feeling, breathing, loving, hating, human life. Physiologists 
tell us that a day's labor by a stout, healthy man, costs about one 
pound of human tissue, muscle, nerve force and blood, seasoned 
with brain. Capital is dead; a good representation of it aisasugar 
cured and canvassed ham ; it has been produced and is non-product- 
ive. It has value, because it has cost human toil, human flesh and 
blood to produce it ; and it will and does meet a want as human 
food. It is perishable, and perishes with the using. It must he 
used in its season or it becomes an offense. And it depends on 
human consumption and demand to have a market and value. 

Capital, hv natural law, is classified in two kinds: (1.) That 
which perishes with the using. Of such nature is the food, raiment, 
fuels and utensils. In these man must, from the nature of the case, 
an absolute property, as against all others. 

(2.) That used by us. but that outlasts the user. Of such na- 
ture is air, light, water and land. In a just sense these elements 
can not be called capital, for they are not produced by man's effort 
or toil. But there is a sense in which one person, as against all 
others, acquires a vested right, for a time, in each one or all these 
elements of nature. But. at most, it is only a life estate; he may 
leave his successor or heir in possession, who succeeds to an like es- 
tate as against others. But no human being would have the right, 
even if he could invent a process to do it, to exhaust the life-sus- 
taining principle in one cubic inch of earth, one drop of water, one 
ray of light, one breath of air. If they could, when we look at the 
past and present rapacity of men. we conclude our earth would he 
a tlead planet, as astronomers tell us our moon is. But nature sets 
a flaming sword and a great gulf hetween the rapacity and ability of 
men in this respect. It says to man. no matter what fantastic figure 
he cuts, how he defies men and insults heaven, what he claims to or 
does not "'own," whether an acre and a hut or a palace and a conti- 
nent. "Dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return." He can only 
actually use and enjoy enough for one person's natural wants. He 
may have robbed others of their lights, prevented them from enter- 
ing in and enjoying their little share of nature's bounty intended 
for them ; hut at last, full of violence, dissatisfied, full of choler. 
gcut and surfeit, ten chances he dies like a dog. before his time, hut 
has time and sense to see, when too late, that he has only played 
the part of ••dog in the manger." 

But there is a limited property in all these four elements, rec- 
ognized and that must be protected by law. A man has no right to 
build a wall or structure and intercept the "ancient light" of the 
sun or day. of you 1- dwelling ; or to build any manufactory that 
poisons the air of your habitation : or poison the fountain or stream 
at which you drink ; or dam up and intercept the natural outlet and 
flow of a stream and flood your land. But in all these cases the 



20 

question of a prior use and occupation is one consideration that 
governs. 

In these elements men have rights to use, but it is a qualified 
right. When the right is of such nature but one person or family 
can enjoy the right or privilege at a time ; one may acquire for the 
time he uses, an absolute right as against all others. 

More especially is this true of land. Improvements to land are 
the direct result of human lahor, as much as food, fuel and raiment ; 
and the right to the enjoyment of enough of land to give living room 
and the improvements made on it, is as absolutely unqualified as that 
to food and raiment, when produced or earned by labor. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE JUST DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 

We have seen the tamiug process of civilization causes men to 
become dissatisfied with the savage modes of living ; causes them to 
desire and seek the necessities, comforts, and, finally, the luxuries 
of life. To accomplish this end men are compelled to engage in 
habitual, systematic labor. No other agency can produce these 
things. And when they are produced and accumulate beyond pres- 
ent needs, they are aggregated and called capital. And this is 
classified as perishable and imperishable. 

No matter from what standpoint we view the fact or state de- 
nominated civilization, whether from a material or a moral one, We 
see the anterior cause to be actual ha man labor. It is the sine quo 
non of civilization. "Labor is prior to and above capital, and de- 
serves much the greater consideration." 

The fact that the question of "the just distribution of labor" is 
a present pressing problem, is an emphatic assertion of existing in- 
justice. It asserts the fact of the existence of an unjust distribu- 
tion. The just distribution ought never to be a necessity. For 
wealth or capital ought never to come to a person as "owner" only 
as a reward for labor and for an equivalent rendered. If it did no 
"distribution" would be necessary in any sense only in that of 
"supply and demand." For it would distribute itself, as it was 
produced, into the hands of the natural, the legimate "owners," 
that is, of the producer. Whether wealth, the fruits of labor, is 
now justly distributed, is a question of fact, to be passed upon from 
observation. 

That it is a question up and that will "not down at the bidding" 
is admitted. Two classes of anarchists threaten the destruction of 
the civilization of Christendom of to-day ; one by the mouthings of 
demagogues and actual threats, the other by acts and a course of 
conduct. The first .class say the civilization of to-day and its con- 
comitant fact, civil government, is all wrong; all vicious, no re- 



deeming feature in it and it ought all to be devoted to destruction 
and all the present recognized principles of property overturned ; 
the class of whom six were recently executed at Chicago. 

The second class is composed of those who systematically rob 
labor of its just reward, according to law. Who say of the present 
order of things it is now all just right ; it must all be maintained 
at the present status no matter at what cost. What we need is 
more "tramp" laws, "stronger government," more Pinkertons, 
more militia, stronger bank vaults and safes, and the proper thing 
to do with the other class of anarchists is, to hang them as fast as 
nimble policemen can get or manufacture evidence to convict and 
sheriffs' ropes to hang them. We thus have, as the antipodes of 
the situation, the refuse of both the robbed and the robbers of la- 
bor. 

Of the two classes of anarchists the second is the more resjDect- 
able, influential and powerful and therefore the more dangerous to 
the civilization of to-day. As usual in such a case, the golden 
mean of right, justice and truth, lies between the two extremes. 
Both are in part right ; both are fundamentally and destructively 
wrong. Destruction lies in following the path and policy of either 
to their natural results. The first class are right, when they say 
that great injustice i-s done labor and it is deprived of its just re- 
ward under the existing order of things. They are wrong when they 
say there is no good in it, and it all ought to be destroyed so there 
will be no head to government, or no government as anarchy means. 
It simply means a return to the law of force, when each man is a 
law unto himself. The world has had too much of that in the past 
to go back through centuries of blood, ashes and tears to it again. 
Bad, as the situation to-day may be it is bad enough, but in Christen- 
dom is better than ever before in the world's history. The present 
is the first century in the history of the world, when the injustice of 
which labor has a right to complain, had a hearing at the bar of an 
intelligent public opinion. When there was such a forum, at which 
to have a hearing. Never before was then a general intelligence to 
which an argument on the subjects of land, transportation and mon- 
ey could be addressed. It has taken centuries of toil, tears, revo- 
lution aud counter revolutions, sacks, ashes and bloody fields, for us 
to struggle, by stages of pain and suffering up to our present im- 
perfect and in many instances grossly unjust administration of law 
and distribution of wealth. But the language of history, reason, 
statesmanship and philanthropy is, hold all the ground you have. 
But that does not argue there is no advance position to be gained ; 
or that here and now our laws, customs and institutions, warped, 
dwarfed, deformed by the ignorance, superstition and beastial, nar- 
row minded greed of the past, shall chrystalize, set and stiffen, as 
it were, in a frost, and thus put a period to civilized rational growth. 
Rather when the taint and virus of injustice that lingers in our sys- 
tems of acquiring and holding property are discovered it is the part 
of candor, common honesty, patriotism and good sense, to admit it. 



28 

Not only that but make actual good faith effort to correct it. It 
must be done ; it is an actual political necessity it be. Let us have 
faith in the good sense, the sense of justice, the patriotism of man- 
kind, especially the American people. 

They will, in due time, take both classes of anarchists in hand 
and set them aright. In our opinion it is not in the power of either 
or both these classes to bring this country to the state of violence 
and anarchy that would be the natural result of the policy recom- 
mended by each. If the necessity for a just distribution of wealth 
exists to-day, it is a potent fact that no matter on what basis or how 
often a distribution of it be made, if the original causes that destroy- 
ed the equatian of justice between labor and capital remaining with 
unabated vigor, the same causes under like circumstances, in sure 
succession, will reproduce the same results. Hence it is the part of 
prudence to find out, if we can, what are these causes, these gener- 
ators of injustice, these destroyers of civilization ; for such they are 
if they assist in robbing labor of its just reward. For the means 
that does it destroys at the same time the incentive to intelligent, 
cheerful, effective labor, and that destroys the resources of civ- 
ilization. 

Labor is the rank and file, the vanguard, the provision train, 
the depot of supplies, the all to civilization. Thus under this topic 
are presented two great subjects of inquiry: 1. What are the causes 
that to-day destroy the equation of justice between labor and capi- 
tal? 2. What is the remedy ? 

The first great cause that conduces to the end and that alone would 
do it, is the assumption that capital, as such, has a right to accretion 
and increase. 

The assertion of the proposition that capital, as such, has no 
right to accretion and increase, will be pronounced by the second 
class of anarchists the essense of anarchy, communism, and all the 
other "isms" they think will injure the truth. Its truth will be 
doubted by many candid and earnest minds at first, All our prac- 
tice and the accepted assertion, and little thought have so long been 
to the contrary, it almost shocks us at first. Just as nature's bev- 
erage, pure cold water, is fiat, insipid and even nauseating to the 
parched and abnormal system of the toper. But in the forum of an 
enlightened and quickened public mind and conscience we confident- 
ly take the affirmative of the proposition : — 

Capital, as such, mas no right to accretion and increase. 

In ihe first place, let us understand just what the proposition 
means. Capital is the collected, aggregated frui's of labor. A 
man may be called a capitalist who owns enough of it so his income 
from it, without being supplemented by his actual, daily, sys ematic 
labor, will support him and those directly dependent on him, wbhoul 
in any way diminishing the principal, or actual investment, under 
present laws. Such a man does not "eat, his bread in the sweat of 
his face ;" he eats it in the '•sweat" of his capital ; he eats his bread 
in the sweat of other men's laces. And just what is intended to be 



29 

and is asserted is, no man has a right to do it. 

(1.) There is but one agency on earth can or does produce 
capital, that is actual human labor. The hands and brains that pro- 
duce it have the first right to it ; no just man will deny it. 

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread" all admit 
is the natural and Christian's belief, the divine law. 

It does not read "in the sweat of thy" neighbor's face. If "all 
men are created equal" politically, as we claim, theproduceer has the 
first right to the fruits of the toil of his hands ; and that right is 
inherently as perfect in one man as another. And no man has the 
right to such fruits until he renders to the "owner" an equal good, 
and if under the established order of things on* j man or class of men 
of ordinary ability and intelligence, are doomed to daily incessant 
toil for an actual existence ; and another man or class of men riot 
daily, free from all such toil and hardship, then injustice is on the 
face of it unless both the following propositions are true. (1). That 
all men of ordinary ability are by the very nature of things in this 
world doomed to such toil and privation to exist. (2). And second 
the class of men who daily riot in the fruits of the toil of other men's 
hands and are exempt from such toil, have multiplied capacity, so 
that one day of their toil is equal in value to that of a hundred or a 
thousand day's toil of other men. 

And we all know both propositions are false and the fact stands 
out clearly, one class of men do acquire the fruits of other's toil and 
do not in fact render an equal good for it. How do they do it? 
What right have they to do it? (2). Capital is dead ; it is produced. 
Unaided by labor it not only is unproductive, but actually wastes 
awa}' and returns to the elements from which it was created by 
labor. 

And in a state of society it is or ought to be, in process of time 
eaten up by taxes and other burdens of civil government. Labor 
can do better without capital, than capital can without labor. The 
mutual necessity of uniting their forces and advantages is actually 
greater upon capital than labor. A lunatic, an idiot, a Vanderbilt 
can inherit and "own" millions of capital; "own" telegraph and 
railroad lines, boats and millions of bonds and currency. But it 
takes the clear eye, the trained cool well-balanced brains, the skill- 
ful hands, the true, brave, honest hearts of thousands of laboring 
men "to operate his property" for a living, day by day, and turn 
over the millions "income" to this human cuttle-fish, that can't even 
count the millions, he "owns." Mr. Vanderbilt is only referred to 
as a sample of a class. 

These people are his bondsmen and bondswomen. How does 
he thus command all the fruits of their daily toil in the main, all but 
a little, if any more than enough for subsistence, in a respectable 
way, while actually engaged in his service? By an "income," on 
his dead, rusty, musty millions, his surfeited, heavy body and stupid 
brain, don't even enable him to count.' In the work-shop of the 
world this despot type of a despotic class puts his "property" he 



30 

"owns" but never saw his dead, rusty, musty millions, to labor over 
against five thousand bright, beautiful, intelligent, women and men; 
day by day he sits in his nickel-plated* palace and nurses his gout 
and teases his vertigo and keeps his millions at hard labor, day in 
and day out, and keeps his five thousand bright, beautiful intelli- 
gent, loved and loving and living bondsmen and women daily at 
work against his dead capital, and then at the end of the year this 
"owner" of dead capital has beaten God's image, warm human 
flesh, brain, heart and blood. It has "earned" enough to live and 
commence on another year, but allits production, earnings, "income" 
over that are added to his dead capital, and they start in next year 
with the odds mcreagainst labor, than before. (3). Where capital 
accumulates it is not from an increase of the sum total of existing 
wealth. Unaided capital can create nothing — cannot in fact exist. 
When it increases it is only accretion, like riparian additions, or 
snow clinging to a ball, rolled over the ground. The ball is larger, 
but there is no more snow. Its increase can come from no other 
source than appropriating the fruits of unrequited toil (4). This 
puts an unnatural a relentless competitor in the field with labor, for 
its reward. And if capital as such has gain, it must be out of la- 
bor's just reward. And the "earnings" of capital, under the exist- 
iug order of things must come with the certainty and the regularity 
of the duration of time. But labor's reward stands all the chances 
and vicissitudes of natural conditions and laws. And in the diver- 
sified ramifications in the business of the world where capital 
"earns" its "income" by usury, labor is compelled to become, not 
only an insurance company for the preservation and the return of 
the capital, principal but actually to insure an actual "earning" and 
"income," on the capital. Labor, so far, is the only insurance com- 
pany that takes such "risks." (5.) The man who owns capital 
more than he needs for present use, or may be, more than he and 
those dependent on him can use during their natural lives, for the 
ordinary necessities and luxuries, is already at an advantage over 
the mass of his fellow men. The protection of his wealth is in itself 
a burden on society ; he may pay for this in taxes. But it is enough 
that even with this he and his are protected and the principal of his 
unemployed capital be preserved, for him and his use by his fellow 
men. So that if he does not choose to supplement his capital with 
the tax on himself of actual toil and labor, he shall be compelled to 
annually draw on the principal, and his fellow men not be compelled 
to guarantee a return, an "income" upon it. "For he that will not 
labor neither shall he eat." Or, if he has capital and does not labor, 
make him eat off of it, instead of off the unrequited toil of his fel- 
low men. There is no injustice in that. It is nature's, it is God's, 
it ought to — it will in the near future be — man's law. Even then he 
would be an actual burden on society, quartered on it, a dead-head, 
for his support, as long as he or his dead capital lasted. But that 
would be better than the existing order, that enables him by his 
"income" on his dead capital to thus quarter him and his on it for- 



31 

ever. (6.) If one class of men in society, the "capitalist" class as 
herein defined, are permitted to thus quarter themselves on the rest 
of their fellow men, when and where is the end to be? Where is 
the rule, what is the law? One of the tests of the truth and justice 
of a rule of conduct, or a human law, is, if it is right and just it can 
be made general — be made to apply to all — and still conduce to the 
general welfare, the common good, the greatest good to the greatest 
number. You can think of examples and make the test yourself. 
And as to one that is wrong and unjust, the same test brings it to 
an "reductio ad absundwn." 

If it is right a man shall have "income" on loaned or unem- 
ployed capital, that is, that he does not supplement with his actual 
attention and daily labor, suppose he has $100,000 invested in bonds 
at five per cent, and has a commodious home with all the necessary 
appointments besides, his income is $5,000 per year without an actu- 
al engagement in any of the daily avocations of life to gain a liveli- 
hood. He has a family, he and all are reasonably able to support 
themselves, as the masses of mankind are compelled to do. But he 
calls his family round him on a New Year's day and says: "We are 
now situated so none of us need engage in the laborious employ- 
ments in which the mass af mankind are compelled to engage for a 
living. If we do labor at all it will only be for pastime. Wife, you 
superintend the domestic, the servants and household affairs. 
Daughter, you can choose the means of gaining the accomplishments 
that best suit our tastes and fits yau to capture and marry a foreign 
snob. Son, you can go to Harvard and learn to "row," and the 
latest arguments in defense of usury, by means of which we "eat 
our bread in the sweut" of other men's faces. And I will watch the 
markets and chances for speculation in corner lots." And all the 
care they need have to continue this establishment and order of 
thing 1 * to son, son's son after him, is to live each year in the limits 
of the "income." In a word, to make it last as long as the present 
order of things. Tht is to say, that man and his establishment are 
, quartered upon the laboring class of mankind ad infinitum. His 
$100,000 labors; he sweats in it by proxy, to offset the actual sweat 
of the faces of at least forty common laboring men and women. 
That man and his family are. pensioners, exempt from all the toil and 
annoyances of common mortals. And at present status, with the 
right to "income," accumulation and increase on c pital, as such, 
it is to last forever. And if one man and his family have a right to 
do so, all may. Or why not? Let us see. If it is right and just, 
and it is a desirable state ; if labor is not thus robbed of its just re- 
ward, and it still labors and gains on, 'hen it will slowly gain its re- 
ward ; and one by one, as reward for lives of fidelity and industry, 
the laborer, as that man, or his ancestors are supposed to have done, 
will, o-ie by one, pass into the favored and desirable state. At last 
one-half of the population are exempt from human toil. The same 
process goes on. Finally ihree-fourths are there. The remaining 
one-fourth of the population do all the labor. We are coming to the 



32 

millenium now. Finally all have passed into that favored class ; no- 
body performs the common toil ; production and preparation of the 
means on which the capital class subsists cease for one year, and 
what do we have? An reductio ad absurdum — the rule is absolute- 
ly false, unjust— it confers special privileges on a class ; the unjust ad- 
vantage of it can only be enjoyed by a class, a favored few, at a time. 
But suppose we take the other horn of the dilemma ; the proposition 
for which Ave contend. "That capital as such has no right to accre- 
tion and increase." The first change would be the cutting off that 
$5,000 ''income," the "income," the increase over actual living of 
the labor of about forty ordinary laboring men and women, and 
leave it in the hands that earned it to gladden their lives and homes. 
But the next change is a most distressing one. 

Our family of "pensioners" would be reduced to the extremity 
of one or the other of two necessities. The first one would be act- 
ually go to work like common mortals and earn their bread by the 
sweat of their own brows ; or the alternative is enough to make an- 
gels weep and Vanderbilt swear again at "them asses, "as he denomi- 
nates "the masses." Yes, actually they would have to go to work 
and do something for a living, or to continue the establishment, at 
its former status, be compelled to draw on the principal at the rate 
of $5,000 per year. And at that rate it would only last twenty years. 
And in that time, the heads of the family might not have died with 
choler, surfeit, gout, vertigo and appoplexy, and Adolphus Augus- 
tus and Victoria Gerusha would not each of them be able to start 
in with an establishment each like their now short-winded and testy 
old ancestor. 

And that would be sore distress and labor, God's poor would 
begin to come up out of the filthy dens and holes, down out of its 
serial dwellings, in rickety attics, right up and down on the surface 
of God's green earth — right where he intended human beings should 
live, and commence to make them comfortable homes. And that 
would be another distressing situation. But now to the contrary, 
all the conditions point labor the other way. The assessment lists 
of this country in 1840 showed there were only three persons in the 
United States estimated to be the "owner" of $1,000,000 of prop- 
erty. In 1884 the same source of information showed we now have 
3,500 millionaires and more coming every day. 

Well may intelligent labor tremble, when it looks at that "pen- 
sion roll." New England daily becomes more and more like old 
England. It is now estimated that three per cent of the property 
holders of the five New England States own more property than 
the other ninety-seven. (7.) If capital as such is permitted to be- 
come a competitor with labor for its daily and yearly reward a re- 
flecting mind must see at a glance that labor is daily and yearly by 
its actual toil, contributing to the force and fund that competes, 
with it and it actually is thus self-destroying ; and in the end it must 
be reduced to the minimum hope and extremity. Its existence and 
prospect is a vanishing one. It daily and yearly produces capital ; 



33 

daily and yearly, dead though it be, capital turns upon and devours 
the fruits of labor. There can in the end be but one outcome to the 
situation. It cannot but be reduced to greater and greater extrem- 
ities under the present order. To illustrate, a laborer works three 
hundred days in the year at two dollars per day. At that rate he 
can little if any more than live ; he has no hope of ever gaining upon 
it. His labor is at least worth one dollar per day to the capitalist, 
or he would not pay two. The laborer thus adds three hundred dol- 
lars per year at least to the wealth of the capitalist and gains him- 
self no capital or even a competency for old age. And the next 
year the capitalist demands "income" on the three hundred added 
by him the year before, with his other capital. And this is true, 
whether the labor as expended actually added three hundred dollars 
"income" to the actual capital of the employer or was expended 
merely to preserve his existing capital. For labor is under no obli- 
gation to preserve it for him. And suppose he labors twenty years 
at this rate ; he has added to or preserved the capital of the em- 
ployer to the sum of $6,000. "Income" on this sum at the rate of 
five per cent is $300 per year on the capital side of the ledger — a 
personage, a potency, as able to "earn" and ten times as certain to 
demand "income" as he was even in his youth, and now he is ready 
to die ; but this potency, this personage lives forever to compete 
with his son and his son's son after him. What of the prospect? 
What of the night for labor? (8). It violates the laws of nature 
and depraves both the laborer and capitalist. 

A human being cannot acquire mental or physical superiority 
without labor; if he has acquired, he cannot retain either without 
labor. "There is no excellence without great labor." It vitiates 
the mind and depraves the body of those who from generation to 
generation take something for nothing. It makes their bodies soft, 
effeminate, passionate, appetites depraved ; causes them to become 
licentious, cowardly, cruel, tyrannical. They die of over-eating, 
drinking, of surfeit, gout, vertigo; in a word, for want of systematic 
exercise in healthful labor. 

Nature's laws cannot be violated, for a life-time, from genera- 
tion to generation with impunity. Her avenger will find the delin- 
quents, the culprits, immured in their palaces — clad in purple and 
tine linen and faring sumptuously every day. It will rack them on 
their downy beds amid their rich tapestry and make them long and 
pray for the healthful appetite and sound refreshing sleep of a la- 
borer. But on the other hand excess of labor destroys home and 
hearth-stone cheerfulness ; makes the laborer stiff, crooked, cheer- 
less, churlish and dwarfed in mind and body of which the tyranny of 
Europe daily delivers us samples. The system as usual is a 
curse to the oppressor and the oppressd, the robbers and the rob- 
bed. It makes the rich richer and the poor poorer ; it makes Dives 
at one end of the line and Lazarus at the other. It sets and daily 
widens the great gulf between them. It justly causes dissatisfac- 
tion to labor; it blots hope from its horizon, causes its view of the 



34 

future to be a vanishing prospect. Indeed judging the future by 
the past it has. it can have no hope. 

Second. What is the remedy? We have tried to diagnose the 
case in general. Any quack can tell a man lie is sick when he lies 
moaning before him. 

It is another thing to prescribe a true remedy. To do it intel- 
ligently the nature and location of the disease must be ascertained. 
If not* the remedy is given by chance and at a venture. Neither 
elass of anarchists prescribe a reasonable remedy, for neither of 
them state the true cause of disease. One asserts there is incurable 
disease, the other there is none. 

Each extreme would destroy each other and all between them. 
There is no hope from either of them. Both must be themselves 
governed. We have seen that the assumption that dead capital has 
a right to, and can. and does "earn" an "income" is wrong. It is 
wrong in principle. It cannot be modified to be right. No com- 
promise can be with it on greed's side the line of absolute justice. 
It forebodes evil to both labor and capital; it now .strainn their re- 
lations to about the last degree of tension. There must, there will, 
there has in some instances come a break. The present order of 
things cannot exist. It violates human nature, natural, material 
and divine law. We do not say this as a threat; we say it in sor- 
row ; not that a change will come, but that there is a necessity it 
shall come. We say it in the light of the laws of compensation, in 
human and all nature, in the light of the page of history. "For 
ever the. right comes uppermost and ever is justice done." 

But for the remedy. A physician looks first at the age and 
condition of his patient. If of an age and condition that indicate 
recent and remaining strength, he knows the patient has some con- 
stitution left, on which to build. He knows, too, the present ab- 
normal and diseased condition comes from some comparatively re- 
cent violation of the laws of health. The fust thing to do is. if such 
violation still continues, to stop it. This, usually, is sufficient treat- 
ment in such a case. 

Our patient, the Body Politic, is sick. It has the taint and 
virus in its system incident to a violation of the laws of justice and 
political health. It is in a dropsical or some such condition; at 
least it is all running to stomach. The circulation, all the other en- 
ergies, the hands, the feet, the whole system is unduly taxed tosup- 
port the stomach. It daily grows to untoward proportions and all 
other members and functions are dwarfed. The feet and legs, the 
hands ane arms of labor cannot support and feed it. It is a big. 
short-winded, dizzy. headed, appoplectic, wheezy old stomach on 
legs, and threatens to sit down flat and helpless on the road of pro- 
gress. The labor anarchists say. amputate its head, because itdoes 
not move on faster ; the capital anarchists say, amputate its feet, 
because it threatens to move at all. So it never can move. The 
patient is not stricken with old age ; it, is disease. True is a dis- 
ease of which all its ancestors died at about its age. But it still has 



constitution left; there is yet hope; it is dying of over-eating- and 
costiveness. It is all run to teeth, gullet and stomach. It all comes 
of the violation of natural laws, of justice and political health. Its 
eating ''income" and "increase" on capital, aggravates and gener- 
ates its unholy greed to still eat more. Its habits of permitting the 
stomach (capital) to keep all it gets and shift its just proportion of 
taxes and burdens of government, aggravate its disease of costive- 
ness. What is the remedy? Stop its unearthly, beastly, grave- 
like hunger and eating. Teach the patient it has something else 
than teeth, gullet and stomach ; that its other members want to, and 
by the grace of God they will, live. 

Deplete that stomach by giving the patient a healthy dose of 
••income tax;" that will help deplete it so it may soon actually be 
able to stand on its feet and take a few steps in advance. Use these 
remedies, and time and nature, in a grander man and womanhood 
will do the rest. 

But as to time and manner of remedy in particular, as applied 
by law in practice, we will refer the reader to the different subjects 
as they follow. At this point we are told "capital is timid," it will 
not venture upon "investment" without •'inducement" and absolute 
"safety." We are aware of that; "timidity" is not the proper 
name: it is "tyranny." But, in fact, its timidity is thatof a freight 
train with no engine, or a baggage and provision train with no mules 
and drivers. Both would stand, and rust and rot down into the 
earth if not laid hold of, preserved and used by the energetic hand 
of labor. The destructive and tyrannical "timidity" of capital is 
not based in, nor does it arise out of. any natural advantage, su- 
periority or law, the law of God or nature, moral or material. It 
grows out of the vicious, artificial, destructive assumption we have 
been discussing, that capital, as such, has a right to accretion and 
increase. 

If you will permit me to assume a false premise and standpoint 
from which to reason and make law, I can prove anything and make 
any moral wrong legally right. If labor is compelled to offer all its 
reward to capita! to "induce" it to "invest" — to permit it to live 
and do its drudgery, its actual labor — human foresight and self- 
preservation would suggest, better desist and try one generation at 
least, and serif we cannot exist just as well without the labor. 
Capital has been on an organized "strike" in the use of legal and 
peaceable means for many. We will try it for one generation. 
Better let the canals till up., the railroad grades wash down, the tel- 
egraph poles tumble, the water craft rot at the docks, the improve- 
ments of lands go back to a state of nature, than daily and yearly yield 
all the reward of labor to those who turn it energized, by a false as- 
sumption and system on its creator. After one generation of such 
a "strike" labor would once more be respectable. Capital would 
not be so "timid." It would be seen that actual human labor is 
actually of some value. Or, if not, the country would go back, so 
far as material wealth is concerned, to comparatively a primitive 



36 

state, and the laborer then would exist better than now, on half the 
exertion. And then, and now, labor has all to gain and nothing to 
lose, and all the chances would be in favor of a start upon a more 
respectable and favorable basis on the new order of things. And 
labor has just the same right, yea, more, for with it it would be self- 
defense to thus organize and for one generation to come, agree sim- 
ply to live, to exist, as it has done and is now doing, and refuse to 
lay a hand to one of the enterprises we have mentioned and let them 
go back into the earth, that capital has to organize, as it has done, 
and lay hold of the law-making, interpreting and executing func- 
tions of society and government and use them to rob labor of its 
just reward. Labor has as much moral, legal and political right 
(and more natural right) to grow "timid" and demand "induce- 
ment and safety to invest" as capital. It has the natural right to 
grow both "timid and tired in view of its daily and yearly dimin- 
ishing and vanishing prospect. In this country it will not show the 
foresight, independence and blood of its fathers if it does not. Cap- 
ital, as such, has no right to demand anything more of labor than 
that, when labor uses it, labor shall assume the payment of the bur- 
dens of taxation on it while used, preserve and give security and 
assurance for the return of the principal intact to the "owner." 
For even then the "owner" has the advantage from every view of 
the situation. The rights of "owner" of property and capital • are 
created, conferred and protected by socieiy. Every right and ad- 
vantage to which a man may justly succeed in society has its cor- 
relative burden. The incidents of advantage that an "owner" of 
capital has are two : 

(1). The right to use and consume it as he chooses, so by do- 
ing it he does not injure society or others. A man has no right to 
wantonly burn his own house or destroy his own property. 

(2.) To use it as an investment, to not only preserve the orig- 
inal sum, but make addiiions and increase, by supplementing it with 
his daily attention and toil. 

The burden incident to the first right as owner is that of taxa- 
tion and the risk of holding it ; that risk as claimed by insurance 
companies is at the rate of from one to two and one-half per cent 
per annum. 

The burdens incident to the second right of the owner, that of 
investment, are all just named, and in addition thereto, the risk of 
his time and labor and the vicissitudes incident to gain and loss from 
the markets and natural law. If the owner chooses not to occupy 
either relation of "holder" or "invester," of his capital, but toloan 
it, he shifts all these burdens on to the borrower. 

(1). The risk of holding and insuring the return of the capital 
principal. 

(2). The burden of taxation on it and the risk of investment 
and the loss of his time and labor, perhaps all the capital he actually 
owns. So that even on this basis he is "servant to the lender" and 
may serve him for no reward. All his inves ment is at sea. depend- 



ent upon wind, tide, wet, drouth, lightning, peace, war, bad or 
no market, he stands a chance to actually lose all his investment of 
time and labor; the lender in no event can lose anything he actually 
ever had, has been and is released from burdens of taxation and 
risk of holding it ; and has been free with his time and labor to use 
it, as he chooses. They are still both men, although one is "owner" 
and "lender" and the other is a borrower; the one ought not be the 
better or the other the worse off as to his rights, as a man, before 
the law for that. And when their relations as lender and borrower 
are regulated upon the basis here contended for, still the lender will 
not then do to others, as he would they should do - to him. Even 
then the chances are against the borrower. 



CHAPTER X. 

LAND AND LAND TENT HE. 

A great potent physical law as irresistible as the law of gravi- 
tation and three great facts generated by it, crowd upon us great 
moral and political questions and issues that, put our civilization to a 
crucial test. The law is the obedience of the race to the natural 
and divine command, "go forth, multiply and replenish the earth." 
The three generated facts are: 1. That under the present compar- 
ative, peace and order of society the race is prolific. 2. Under 
these conditions populations are growing dense. 3. Nature does 
not spontaneously produce enough to subsist a dense population; it 
can only be done by the toil of human hands. Land is the basic- 
fact of animal existence. Man is an animal if he is no more ; he 
draws his subsistence from the earth in common with the other ani- 
mals. 

If he is no more than an animal he has the natural right to 
room on the face of the earth to live and subsist; and the right is as 
perfect in one man as another. And if he cannot have it without, 
he has the natural right to contend, light for and take it by force. 
If there is actually room for all and some are crowded because oth- 
ers occupy more than they need and naturally belongs to them, 
there is the more reason he should contend. If there is not actual- 
ly room he will contend and the law of force and the "survival of 
the fittest" will be the laAv, so that if we are only animals to live our 
brief allotted time, human prudence, foresight and self-preservation 
would suggest that we be neighborly and good natured and adjust 
ourselves to our new surroundings. For bad temper and bad na- 
ture makes bad neighbors, and it takes more room to live fighting 
than in peace — especially when our neighbors threaten to make room 
with gunpowder and dynamite. But, if we are more than animal, if 
this earth is only a propagating sphere of souls destined to live and 
think and feel and know forever, as Christians believe (or pretend 



38 

to), and these souls are effected here by the acts and conduct of 
their fellows and thus are developed and beautified or dwarfed and 
deformed and thus receive birth-marks that shall last forever, are 
the natural rights that would belong to man as an animal diminished 
or made less perfect by these considerations ? The gospels of tem- 
poral and eternal salvation go hand in hand. Christ taught both ; 
he said one human being, politically at least, is as good as another, 
when he said to all of them "do to others as ye would they should 
do to you." Men have stomachs as well as souls; they do not want 
a man or men, or church to tell them how to save their souls who 
conspire to and support laws and institutions that rob their bodies. 
Dwarfed, starved bodies make dwarfed, starved souls. If we are the 
offspring of an intelligent Father, who loves mercy, justice and his 
offspring, it is his will, we shall each have living and subsisting room 
to develop all the capacities of our being, and he must know, as well 
as we, "that a healthy mind must have its foundation, in a healthy 
body." We must believe there actually is such room on the earth 
for all his children ; or that he cannot, or does not direct these mat- 
ters. As a matter of fact we know there is ample room. To admit 
he does not direct, or care for our well being, is to concede all con- 
tended for by the unbelievers ; is to concede that he creates one 
class to "discover," "pre-empt" "own" and occupy the earth, with 
dogs, game, horses, mules, asses, cattle and sheep, for hunting and 
grazing grounds ; and another class to hang on the ragged edge of 
existence, suspended between heaven and earth, as if unlit for either, 
by that brittle thread, a "landlord's lease." Living to laborandla- 
boring to live. One man to "own" a million acres and a million 
men to own no acre. One man to riot daily, yearly, for genera- 
tions in the fruits of the toil of hundreds of men better before the 
laws of God and man than himself. Convince me such is the will 
and legac}' left to us, as his offspring, and my Bible goes to the 
owls and bats to swell the heap of musty "isms" of the world's his- 
tory. Then would Christ's words "do to others as ye would they 
should do to you" be the coldest irony. It cannot be believed much 
less practiced by an intelligent Christian. The fact, of dense popu- 
lations is crowding Christian civilization in at the gates of one or 
the other of two forums; the forum of reason and justice, when men 
in obedience to law consent to do their to fellows as they would their 
fellows, to reverse the situation, should do to them; or, the forum 
when they refuse to do that, and from whose unjust decrees men 
sooner or later appeal to arms and the law of force. There is no 
matter of choice about it; we may mouth, and demagogues deal in 
euphonious consonants and glittering generalities to dull the public- 
ear and hush into a drowse, but the surging tide of humanity, like 
the surf of the incoming tide and the moaning sea, crowds us daily, 
hourly, closer and closer, to a choice of the two. The situation is up- 
on us — the filling up process is a stubborn, actual fact. They are 
crowding in — you may growl, you may hop on one foot with your 
corns of prejudice and selfishness in your hand and scowl and make 



- —39 

wry faces, and hurl political anathemas, maranthas and curses. But 
they will only smile at your simplicity and come right on, right in 
and suggest you keep your corns in a more diminutive circle. Con- 
gress can limit or suspend the coinage of silver, and the issue of 
currenc}" to enable the usurer to more effectively rob labor of its just 
reward; but it cannot "repeal" the law "go forth, multiply and re- 
plenish the earth." It goes on— it is the fiat of nature and nature's 
God, and the man and class of men who refuse to accept the new 
situation, the altered relation of things will find their situation daily 
becoming more and more uncomfortable. Civilization means a place 
for everybody and every body in his place. Why tell men to "mul- 
tiply" and "replenish the earth" if it is now too full. 

' The short-winded, short-sighted, big girted, little hat-band 
class of men in this country and Europe who want to "own" all the 
land joining them, or a million acres apiece, ought to send in a re- 
monstrance to and demand repeal of that law. The police order of 
modern society is, straighten, even if you have to stand up ; take in 
your toes, your long, crooked, ungainly shanks; if you have corns 
look well to them, for the rest of mankind are too busy trying to 
live to do it, or stumble over or around you. You go to concert, 
lecture or theatre ; you get your ticket, your place, your section. 
your chair ; you get in the wrong "pew" or chair and you get 
"bounced!" — you must take your own place and stay in it; then 
you are comfortable and safe ; you get out, you get a quarrel and 
ejected, or like a bore, impose on the gentility of those who have 
more of the common decencies of mankind than yourself. Did you 
ever enter a crowded church when a big man took the aisle end of a 
pew and stuck to it like a postage stamp, and made men, women 
and children crowd or tumble over his knees and eleven brogans? 

The porcns of human nature will expose itself in all these minor 
relations of life. Of course the tame porcus who here is offensive 
only in his little meanness, in other and greater interests and rela 
tions of life, roused from the lair of his special privileges and advan- 
tages and asked to do to others as he would they should do to him be- 
comes the wild boar of the wildwood ; his hair all stands the other 
way — he walks crossed-legged and side-wise ; his tusks and foam 
and odor are ominous. A dense population, per force of circum- 
stances, puts us on our good behavior ; drives the individuals of soci- 
ety to an observance of "the better angels of our nature," to fideli- 
ty to these laws. Its existence depends on the contest waged be- 
tween fidelity and infidelity to them. Fidelity to them is the pre- 
servative, the "salt," the 'infidelity, the negative, the destructive 
tendency and disease; and if "its' salt hath lost its savor wherewith 
shall it be salted," or saved? "It is henceforth good for nothing, 
but to be cast out and trodden under the foot of men" and it will 
be done in obedience to 'he laws of human nature. As soon as one 
of these elements of society, the saving or the destructive one, gains 
a clear mastery over the other and the conditions all tend in the one 
or the other direction, the destiny of the community or nation in 



40 

that regard is fixed ; and it goes on its course like a planet in its 
orbit, in obedience to law. Jesus laid the foundation for the civili- 
zation of the future, in his gospel of temporal salvation, in the 
words to "'do to others as ye would they should do to you." That 
rule cannot harm a human being. In violation of it, every relation 
of man to man may be violated and not only the civilization of to- 
day, but the race itself be destroyed. 

Inside the rule is human finity and affinity, human safety and 
justice. Outside of it is infinity, repulsion, human danger and in- 
justice and consequent appeal to force. That rule and standard set- 
tles the rights of the parties in every relation, in every case. He who 
is too short will be stretched ; he who is too long will be amputated. 
A dense population will elbow and trample the individual until, if he 
cognizes no other, he will the law of fcrce. For they arc here, 
they have come to stay — they will insist on thinking they have a 
right to room to stay, and they will crowd him to somewhere near 
that rule, or he will have to crowd them out. That is an appeal to 
force anarchy. And he is the worst anarchist in society to-day, the 
most dangerous one, who claims most and concedes fewest rights to 
his fellow men. 

And he is the first one with whom it ought and for sake of self- 
preservation it will be compelled to deal. A moment's thought by 
a clear and unselfish mind will make this apparent. The man who 
deliberately and intelligently claims and demands rights and advan- 
tages in society, he refuses to concede toothers, challenges them to 
accept one of two situations he and his class force on them. First, 
submit to his unjust exactions, or second, resist them with force. 

Nature suggests and revelation sanctions the "home;" here the 
circle, the conditions for the propagation of the race are completed; 
in both it is the holy of holies. 

There the first lessons of mine and thine are learned by lisping 
prattlers at the mother's knees. There the first lessons of self-de- 
nial and self-government are taught. 

There republican self-government is enthroned or dethroned in 
the hearts of the people. It is the atom of our civilization. If the 
atom of the tissue and the molecules of the blood are formed under 
unnatural and diseased conditions they must he depraved and the 
whole body become sick. 

In the home natural love and affections grow, if at all, and shed 
their fragrance in all the relations in life, in society, and stimulate to 
habits of temperance, morality and industry. The first thing 
blighted by the influence of a dissolute man or woman is the home. 
There womanhood sheds sweetest fragrance, "childhood knows its 
sweetest joys ; innocence is a perfume and guilt a stench : there man- 
hood is made grave, grand, broad and deep in all that is best in us. 
"He that hath wife ami children hath given hostages to fortune." 
— Bacon. Read the history of the race as it has struggled for civil 
and religious liberty. 

Its pennons were carried over the moats and bulwarks of ignor- 



41 

ance, superstition, and conservative tyranny by the hands of grand 
men who came from virtuous homes lighted by love's watch fires. 
It never was confided to the hands of the homeless, the ignorant 
marauders, licentious libertines or slaves of avarice. -Conservative 
tyranny and greed always marshals that hessian and savory host un- 
der its banners 

A human home of comfort and respectability cannot be made 
in a den beneath or in an attic above the surface of the earth. If 
we credit holy writ, the first pair were not so located, but "in the 
midst of the garden to dress and keep it." The same breeze that 
rustled the leaves of the tree of •'"the knowledge of good and evil," 
fanned the cheek and lifted the golden tresses of bright, beautiful 
Eve. 

The same sunlight that fell on its rich pregnant soil, fell on the 
manly form of Adam, and both drank from the same limpid foun- 
tains in which the birds of paradise bathed their beaks and plumage. 
At this point our picture will be blotted by a suggestion of the 
"apple," the ejectment, the "flaming sword" and the "curse" by 
the pleader for special privileges. 

For man's sake the earth was cursed ; we do not understand the 
curse was on man. He was ejected from the inside of the garden 
and innocent nakedness and life. But at the same time got a deed 
to all outside, with only two limitations in the granting clause ; first 
that "in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread;" second, 
"multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it," and along with 
this, death. Physical death was a necessary corollary of "multiply- 
ing;" for without it we now would not have standing or subsisting 
room, and our special pleader for special privileges would not be al- 
lowed a rod square of land. It is remarkable with what unanimity 
in all ages of the world, those who claim more for themselves than 
they are willing to concede to others, and with what fond and simple 
assurance they cling to the "curses" of the bible. 

"Cursed is Ham" from the lips of maudlin old Noah 800 B. C. 
was volumes of excuse for whipping women and selling babies in 
the eighteenth Christian century. Tell the Christian usurer, the Jew 
was not permitted under Mosaic law to take usury from a Jew and 
that Jesus said "I came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but 
to fulfill ;" and he will inform you the Jew could take from the 
"stranger" or gentile. Then tell him Paul and Peter and the rest 
said there is no more "Jew or gentile," and he will inform you, he 
only takes eight per cent. It is natural and consonant with the dic- 
tates of human greed. Special privileges mean general curse. It 
is logical — the one follows the other. One grows out of the other 
as toad-stools on a dung-hill. It is the logic of events. 

If there is an intelligent Father and Creator of us all He in- 
tended we should be civilized. 

He is grieved at our miserable or degraded condition, at least 
as much as we would be at beholding our offspring, in such a state. 
Civilization is his designing and appointment. If its humanizing 



42 

and refining influences and results are pleasing to us, they are much 
more so to Him. 

If it is of his appointment it behooves us as professed christians 
to study the law and conditions under which it flourishes and thrives 
or languishes and dies. And the man or men who wilfully violate 
its laws and conditions are misanthropes and enemies to God and 
the race. What is it, then? In what does it consist? The name 
or word is derived from a Latin one, civies, a name applied b}' the 
ancient Romans to the dwellers in the cities ■bikI towns of that day, 
to distinguish them from the rude, untamed rustics of the country. 
It is a taming process ; it consists in a state, a condition, a disposi- 
tion of mind of men toward their fellows. If we go to a tribe so 
wild they flee from us, like the deer, we must first tame them to get 
in ear-shot ; show them we mean them no harm ; inspire them with 
faith, confidence, trust, that we wish and bring them only good. 
Faith, confidence, trust, is the foundation of civilization, as it is of 
every moral and material good. After gaining their confidence the 
next lesson to teach them is the difference between mine and thine. 
That seems to be about the last lesson men as citizens learn ; even 
so-called civilized men are liable to become confused at this point. 
Savage men cannot at first understand that those who cannot resist 
them with brute force have rights of person and property, they 
ought to respect In such a community, and among such men, 
woman, because of her defenselessness, is always made a menial 
and the means of gratifying beastly lust. They have always had 
but one court in which to try their mat ers of difference — that is the 
court of force and strong right arms. To civilize them they must 
be taught there i«i a higher, a nobler, a more humnne and God-like 
tribunal to which all such differences must be submitted ; that is, 
the forum of reason and justice, where all men's rights are sacred 
and no one will or can demand, as a right, more than he will cou- 
cede. Civilization is the reign of mind and justice ; barbarism is the 
reign of brute force and muscle. The one is reign of brain and heart, 
the other the reign of brawn and stomach. Our civilization still is a 
mixed one, and the page of history is a dark, bloody, tear-stained 
one. 

Ignorant, savage men. are ever distrustful — they distrust each 
other; they take no prisoners or practice the parole of honor in war; 
they must have hostages in time of peace. Even the eclipse nnd 
other manifestations of nature are to them harbingers of evil. They 
are dark and bloody-minded and clannish. The tendency is to dis- 
integration — against society — to go on dividing and isolating until 
each would be a tribe by himself. He then concludes his political 
horizon is the limit of all human and political good, the end of the 
world ; he is the center of the universe and it all revolves round him. 
The light of knowledge let in on his benighted mind changes the 
lenses in the field-glass of his observations and reverses his view of 
himself and surroundings. Instead of the hub he sees he is only a 



43 

spec on the ocean of matter and eternity, and dependent on all 
around him. 

The civilization of the past has been temporary, short lived, 
ephemeral, as its ruins scattered along the road of the race in an- 
tiquity testify. Most of the history of the past is made up of ac- 
counts of invasions made and repelled, of conquests and reconquests ; 
war over the "succession," whether this or that bigoted, stubborn 
blockhead shall wear a bauble called a crown. The national poli- 
cies of the past have been against all outside rather than for all in- 
side the boundary lines. 

Politically the civilized world is in a tranformation period. New 
conditions are rife in the political atmosphere ; it indicates a fluctu- 
ating moral barometer that forebodes a storm. There will soon be 
a series of political cyclones ; the magnetic and electrical powers of 
free thought, silently, but nevertheless uncontrolably, are gathering 
head ; it will soon strike and demolish edifices of special privileges, 
and greed nnd hobbies of the past. 

New ideas, like hatching chickens, have grown too large for the 
antiquated laws, customs and institutions moulded in the ignorance 
and greed of the past. Whole broods of them are pecking their way 
out; others are just out, with pieces of the shell yet on them ; more 
still are coming. Heretofore national policy has been one that 
busied itself with all outside its own boundaries. 

But the logic of events is driving the nations of Christendom to 
consider matters of inside rather than outside policy. Populations 
have multiplied and taken on tangible, sensitive forms, that fill their 
boundaries as a body fills a garment. Inside policy must engage 
the attention of the statesman of the future. To Europe no new 
world opens, to excite the cupidity and rapacity of its monarchs. 
Its crowded populations surge in ebulitions of discontent. On this 
side the Atlantic the saying, "Go west, young man, and grow up 
with the country," has lost its enticing charm. 

The day of conquest nd acquisition of territory has past. The 
day of planting, pruning and filling up has come. The ques- 
tions of the future is not, how large shall our boundaries 
be, but how full can we fill them ; not how many miles of area but 
how many population to the mile. It marks an era in the history of 
Christendom and the world ; a new civilization, or civilization under 
'new conditions, is compelled to assert itself. Savage men cannot 
exist in a dense population. Society of the past has often given 
itself temporary relief by boiling over — by emigration into unoccu- 
pied territory- That source of relief is gone to-day. It is compell- 
ed to receive the shock of its ebulitions turned back upon itself. 
Like the sea it is compelled to purify itself or grow stagnant and 
life-destroying, The ever recurring question is, can it do it? 

When there was not a man to a square mile the question of lim- 
itation of the ownership of land was below our political horizon. 
Then, if it flattered a man's vanity to claim and "own" all insight 
or between him and the setting sun, it had the virtue, at least, of 



44 

innocence — it harmed no one. But that day has passed. Men now 
have come to claim their heritage and natural rights. The question 
rises on our horizon "like a man's hand" at first, but it rapidly as- 
sumes proportions that portend a storm. The million men with no 
acre question the title of the man with a million acres ; they file 
ejectments against him in the forum of reason and justice — they urge 
the cause for trial. They say, "On what meat doth this oi e Ciesar 
feed that he hath grown so great?" His claims and ownership dis- 
inherit them of the rights of even animals. They would not be men 
if they did not commence to examine his title. 

In this country the first link in his chain of title is that of "dis- 
covery;" in Europe it is clubs, spears and short swords. On this 
continent the next link is that of "pre-emption;" that is first buy- 
ing of some form of government, or some body who got in sight of 
it first and laid hold of all in sight, like the passenger in the empty 
railway coach. 

By these means, soulless, heartless corporations, "artificial per- 
sons" created by civil government, by men, have laid hold upon 
millions of acres and forbid natural persons created in God's image 
to enter ; crowd them out into the highways and hedges down into 
dens beneath and up into attics above the surface of the earth. And 
they are still crowding into and after our public domain. 

All the spawn of the effete, thick blooded, cowardly, insolent, 
royal and aristocratic scions of Europe and our own shoddy aristoc- 
racy think they must each and all be accomodated to a million acres 
and a "living;" they must all be provided for. There is now little 
or no room for them on the blood and tear-stained bone-yards, camps, 
forts and arsenals they have made of Europe. They must have 
room and foot-hold, to disinherit the sons and daughters of the 
Revolutionary Fathers of 1776 — who founded the World's Republic. 

And thus far they are having things about in accord with their 
own sweet wills. The successors of Washington in the presidential 
chair have bowed and scraped to them like shaving horses and hand- 
ed out to them, sweet-scented, rose-tinted "Patents," of the public 
domain of the "land of the free and the home of the brave." This 
is not overdrawn : it is a bare statement of a shameful fact. 

They possess and occupy with great complacency and the sons 
and daughters of Washington and the Revolutionary Fathers "stay 
if they can rent." These questions of land and land tenure always 
come up on the tidal wave of a dense population. It came on Rome 
in the 5th century, B. C. ; she battled with and failed to settle it and 
it settled Rome. Ever since the contest between the "plebian" and 
the "patrician" has waged with varying fortune in different ages 
and countries. 

The "patrician" is always the rich, the land owning, the en- 
croaching, the tyrannizing class. The "plebian" is the poor, the dis- 
inherited, the assailed, the oppressed class. There is no longer any 
room for the owner of a thousand acres of land in the domain of 
Christendom. 



— 45 

Because first, he does not, no human being or family does need 
it and cannot use it any more than they need or can use one of the 
tributaries of the great rivers exclusively for drink. 

And second, if they did and all others had or can acquire just 
as good right to that much land, there is not not enough to go 
round at that rate. The situation puts the cause on the docket and 
demands a trial in one or the other of the two forums. To-da}' we 
may choose in which it shall go, the court of reason and justice or 
the forum of dynamite and force. No use to shut our eyes and say 
there is no cause, no court has jurisdiction. Charles I. tried that— 
he denied the jurisdiction of the court ; but that did not disturb the 
court ; Charles only lost his head, that was all. The court stripped 
him of his royal toggery and in its presence he was nobody, butplain 
Charles Stuart. Louis XVI did the same — it did not prevent the 
cause going into court, the court of force, and his denying its juris- 
diction did not in the least postpone the descent of the glittering 
blade of the guillotine on his royal neck. 

Both of them had a day for peace, an opportunity "to agree with 
the adversary quickly, while they were in the way with him." Both 
refused to listen to reason or justice ; both refused to accept and 
submit their cause to the jurisdiction and decree of that court. 

Both appealed to the forum, the court of force, and they nor 
their friends have any cause to complain of the judgment of the 
court into which they by choice carried their cause ; although its 
judgment and execution were somewhat summary, it would have 
been the same if the}' had been successful. Shall we profit by thier 
example? "Ciesar had his Brutus, Charles I. his Cromwell" and 
the "patricians" of to-day will do well to profit by their example. 

"I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided and that is 
the lamp of experience." 

The "plebians" instead of a Brutus or a Cromwell, will have a 
Cincinnatus or a Washington; the "patrician's" cause may have a 
"Boston massacre" "Lexington" or "Concord," at the first; it will 
"sing Yankee Doodle as its ancestors did, undoubtedly it is doing it 
now: but in the end, in the outcome, in the "last ditch at Yorktown" 
it will be at the Cornwallis the surrender end of the situation. The 
language of temperance, philanthropy and patriotism is carry this 
cause, while we may, into the court of reason and justice. Stop our 
ears to the clamour of both the Herr Most and the Gould- Vander- 
bilt wings of the anarchist's factions. Do it before it is carried to 
the other court. No use to lag — no use to say there is no cause. 
The same cause came up to be tried between the church and state 
on one side and the people of France on the other. The people 
plead in rags, sack-cloth and ashes of poverty for generations with 
ihe "secular" and clerical "princes" the two orders, the church and 
state. Their pleading only inspired more insolence and robbery un- 
til in 1774 the secular and clerical "princes" and "orders" owned 
three-fifths of the best lands of France. The only relief granted 
by ihem to the down-trodden people and peasantry was to clasp their 



46- 

arms together more closely and plant their feet more securely on 
their necks. Finally the people said, you spurn the court of reason 
and justice do you? You appeal to the court of force? So do we! 
Now try the cause in your own court. And the scenes that followed 
made the world stand aghast— the record is written in blood, tears 
and ashes. 

A like cause came up for hearing in our own loved country ; we 
were appealed to as a nation, to love, mercy and deal justly with a 
poor down-trodden people. As a nation we refused to do it in the 
forum of peace and justice. We paid dearly in blood, tears, treas- 
ure, ashes, vacant hearthstones and hearts. Shall the "lamp of 
experience" be of any use to us? Let us act the part of an intelli- 
gent, patriotic people. Admit there is a cause to be tried— admit it 
has merits — admit the "plebians" have cause for complaint — admit 
thev have rights that must be better protected*, by better law and 
better administration of it. Say to the masses of the people "come 
let us reason together," as just and reasonable men. Say to them 
no one has a right to demand and enforce special privileges ; all 
ought, all must in all these matters do to others as they would oth- 
ers do to them. You have a right to the fruits of your labor and 
the right to make homes by your industry. 

Of course this will not suit either wing of the anarchists fac- 
tions, but it will be in accord with humane statesmanship. 

And what is the remedy? In the first place it is not in taking 
from one man and giving to another for no equivalent rendered. As 
we have seen that is the very thing, the very wrong that has destroy- 
ed the equation of justice between labor and capital. "Two wrongs 
do not make one right." The question is capable of solution and 
justice can be done by an application of well-known and recognized 
principles. 

For, although principles are eternal in their nature and are al- 
ways the same, yet in the history of the civilization of the world all 
of them that are now acknowledged and are benign in influence, 
once, were new to it and the assertion of every such one has cost 
the race generations of civil and political travail, in blood and tears. 
The birth of each was a shock to society. If this cause can be met^ 
and the conflicting interests at stake determined by the application 
of recognized principles, it will be a great relief to society. It is a 
question and situation that cannot but create solicitude in the mind 
of the patriot and philanthropist. 

And now we lay down this proposition, not as anything new, 
but so old it seems almost obsolete. 

Actual occupation and use confers the only pre-eminent right 
and title to the exclusive possession of real estate on a human being. 
It is the only legitimate title by which one person may exclude oth- 
ers from possession of distinct portions of the earth. No human 
being ever rightfully acquired more, and none can convey any more 
or better title than they have. To show this is not new or an inno- 



47 

vation upon accepted and established principles, I now quote from 
Blackstone, Book II, Chapter I, Title "Of Property in General." 
There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination, and en- 
gages the affections of mankind, as the right of property or that 
sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over 
the external things of the world in total exclusion of the right of any 
other individual in the universe, and yet there are verv few that will 
give themselves the trouble to consider the original and foundation 
of this right. Pleased as we are with the possession we seem afraid 
to look back to the means by which it was acquired, as if fearful of 
some defect in our title ; or at best we rest satisfied with the decis- 
ion of the laws in our favor without examining the reason or authority 
upon which those laws have been built. We think it enough that 
our title is derived by the grant of the former proprietor by descent 
from our ancestors or by the last will and testament of the dying 
owner; not caring to reflect that (accurately and strictly speaking) 
there is no foundation in nature or in natural law why a set of words 
upon parchment should convey the dominion of land ; why the son 
should have a right to exclude his fellow creatures from a determin- 
ate spot of ground, because his father had done so before him ; or 
why the occupier of a particular field or of a jewel, when lying on 
his death-bed, and no longer able to maintain possession, should be 
entitled to tell the rest of the world which of them should enjoy it 
after him. These inquires, it must be owned, would be useless and 
even troublesome in common life. It is well if the mass of man- 
kind will obey the laws when made without scrutinizing too nicely 
into the reasons of making them. But, when law is to be consider- 
ed not only as a matter of practice, but also as a rational science it 
cannot be improper or useless to examine more deeply the rudi- 
ments and grounds of these positive constitutions of society. In 
the beginning of the world we are informed by holy writ, the all 
bountiful Creator gave to man "dominion over all the earth, and 
over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air, and over ev- 
ery living thing that moveth upon the earth." This is the only true 
and solid foundation of man's dominion over external things, what- 
ever airy metaphysical notions may have been started by fanciful 
writers upon this subject. The earth, therefore, and all things 
therein are the general property of all mankind, exclusive of other 
beings from the immediate gift of the Creator, and, while the earth 
continued bare of inhabitants, it is reasonable to suppose that all 
was in common among them, and that every one took from the 
public stock to his own use such things as his immediate necessities 
required. These general nctions of property were then sufficient to 
answer all the purposes of human life, and might perhaps still have 
answered them had it been possible for mankind to have remained 
in a state of primeval simplicity ; as may be collected from the man- 
ners of many American nations when first discovered by the Euro- 
pean and from the ancient method of living among the first Europe- 
ans themselves, if we may credit either the memorials of them pre- 



—48- 

served in the golden age of the poets, or the uniform accounts given 
by historians of those times wherein "erant Omnis communia et in- 
divisa omnibus vehiti munn cunctus patrimonium e.<set." Not that 
this communion of goods seems ever to have been applicable, even 
in the earliest ages, to aught but the substance of the thing; nor 
could it be extended to the use of it. For by the law of nature and 
reason, he, who first began to use it, acquired therein a kind of tran- 
sient property, that lasted so long as he was using it, and no longer ; 
or, to speak with greater precision the right of possession continued 
for the same time only that the act of possession lasted. Thus the 
ground was in common, and no part of it was the permanent prop- 
erty of any man in particular ; yet whoever was in the occupation of 
any determined spot of it, for rest for shade, or the like, acquired 
for the time a sort of ownership, from which it would have been un- 
just, and contrary to the law of nature to have driven him by force ; 
but the instant that he quitted the use or occupation of it another 
might seize it without injustice. Thus also a vine or other tree 
might be said to be in common, as all men were equally entitled to 
its produce; and yet any private individual mightgainthe sole prop- 
erty of the fruit, which he had gathered for his own repast. 

A doctrine well illustrated by Cicero, who compares the world 
to a great theatre, which is common to the public, and yet the place 
which any man has taken is for the time his own. But when man- 
kind increased in numbers, craft, and ambition, it became necessary 
to entertain conceptions of more permanent dominion, and to ap- 
propriate to individuals not the immediate use only, but the very 
substance of the thing to be used. Otherwise innumerable tumults 
must have arisen, and the good order of the world been continually 
broken and disturbed, while a variety of persons were striving who 
should get the first, occupation of the same thing, or disputing which 
of them had actually gained it. 

As human life also grew more and more refined, abundance of 
conveniences were devised to render it more easy, commodious and 
agreeable, as habitations for shelter and safety, and raiment for 
warmth and decency. But no man would be at the trouble to pro- 
vide either so long as he had only an usufructary property in them, 
which was to cease the instant that he quitted possession ; if, as soon 
as he walked out of his tent, or pulled off his garment, the next 
stranger who came by would have a right to inhabit, the one and to 
wear the other. In the case of habitations in particular, it was nat- 
ural to observe, that even the brute creation, to whom everything 
else was in common, maintained a kind of permanent property in 
their dwellings, especially for the protection of their young ; that the 
birds of the air had nests, and the beasts of the field had caverns, 
the invasion of which they considered a very flagrant injustice, and 
would sacrifice their lives to preserve them. Hence, a property was 
soon established in every man's house and home stall, which seem 
to have been originally mere temporary huts or movable cabins, 
suited to the design of providence for more speedily peopling the 



49 

earth, and suited to the wandering life of their owners before any 
extensive property in the soil or ground was established. And there 
can be no doubt but that movables of every kind became sooner ap- 
propriated than the permanent, substantial soil, partly because they 
were more susceptible of a long occupancy, which might be contin- 
ued for months together without any sensible interruption, and at 
length, by usage, ripen into an established right ; but principally 
because few of them could be fit for use till improved and meliorat- 
ed by the bodily labor of the occupant, which bodily labor, bestow- 
ed upon any subject which before lay in common to all men, is uni- 
versally allowed to give the fairest and most reasonable title to an 
exclusive property therein. 

The article of food was a more immediate call, and therefore a 
more early consideration. Such as were not contented with the 
spontaneous product of the earth sought for a more solid refresh- 
ment in the flesh of beasts which they obtained by hunting. But 
the frequent disappointments incident to that method of provision 
induced them to gather together such animals as were of a more 
tame and sequacious nature, and to establish a permanent property 
in their flocks and herds in order to sustain themselves in a less pre- 
carious manner, partly by the milk of their dams and partly by the 
flesh of the young. 

The support of these, their cattle, made the article of water al- 
so a very important point. And therefore the book of Genesis, (the 
most venerable monument of antiquity, considered merely with a 
view to histor}',) will furnish us with frequent instances of violent 
contentions concerning wells, the exclusive property of which ap- 
pears to have been established in the first digger or occupant, even 
in such places where the ground and herbage remained yet in com- 
mon. Thus we find Abraham, who was but a sojourner, asserting 
his right to a well in the country of Abimelech and exacting an 
oath for his security, "because he had digged that well." And 
Isaac, about ninety years afterwards, reclaimed this, his father's 
property ; and after much contention with the Philistines was suf- 
fered to enjoy it in peace. All this while the soil and pasture of the 
earth remained still in common as before, and open to every occu- 
pant, except perhaps in the neighborhood of towns, where the ne- 
cessity of a sole and exclusive property in lands (for the sake of 
agriculture) was earlier felt, and therefore more readily complied 
with. Otherwise, when the multitude of men and cattle had con- 
sumed every convenience on one spot of ground, it was deemed a 
natural right to seize upon and occupy such other lands as would 
more easily supply their necessities. This practice is still retained 
among the wild and uncultivated nations that have never been form- 
ed into civil states, like the Tartars and others in the east ; where 
the climate itself, and the boundless extent of their territory, con- 
spire to retain them still in the same savage state of vagrant liberty 
which was universal in the earlier ages, and which Tacitus informs 



-50- 

us, continued among the Germans till the decline of the Roman 
Empire. 

We have also a striking example of the same kind in the history 
of Abraham and his nephew, Lot. When their joint substance be- 
came so great that pasture and other conveniences grew scarce, the 
natural consequence was that a strife arose between their servants, 
so that it was no longer practicable to dwell together. This con- 
tention Abraham thus endeavored to compose; "Let there be no 
strife, I pray thee, between thee and me. Is not the whole land be- 
fore thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me. If thou wilt 
take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to 
the right hand, then I will go to the left." This plainly implies an 
acknowledged right in either to occupy whatever ground he pleased 
that was not pre occupied by other tribes. "And Lot lifted up his 
eyes, and beheld all the plain of the Jordan, that it was well watered 
everywhere, even as the garden of the Lord. Then Lot chose him 
all the plain of Jordan, and journeyed east; and Abraham dwelt in 
the land of Canaan." 

Upon the same principle was founded the right of migration, 
or sending colonies to find out new h dotations, when the mother 
country was overcharged with inhabitants ; which was practiced as 
well by the Phoenicians and Greeks as the Germans, Scythians and 
other northern people. And so long as it was confined to the s oek- 
ing and cultivation of the desert uninhabited countries, it kept 
strictly within the limits of the law of nature. But how far the 
seizing on countries already peopled and driving out or massacreing 
the innocent and defenceless natives merely because they differed 
from their invaders in language, in religion, in customs, in govern- 
ment, or in color, — how far such a conduct was eonsona t to nature, 
to reason, to Christianity, deserved well to be considered by those 
who have rendered their names immortal by thus civilizing mankind. 

As the world by degrees grew more populous, it daily became 
more difficult to find out new spots to inhabit, without encroaching 
upon former occupants; and, by constantly occupying the same in- 
dividual spot the fruits of the earth were consumed and its spontan- 
eous produce destroyed, without any provision for future supply or 
succession. It therefore became necessary to procure some regular 
method of providing a constant subsistence; and this necessity pro 
duced, or at least promoted and encouraged the art of agriculture. 
And the art of agriculture, by a regular connection and consequence, 
introduced and established the idea of a more permanent property 
in the soil than had hitherto been received and adopted. 

It was clear that the earth would not produce her fruits in suffi- 
cient quantities without the assistance of tillage. But who would 
be at the pains of tilling it if another might watch an opportunity 
to seize upon and enjoy the product of his industry, art, and labour? 
Had not therefore a separate property in lands, as well as movables 
been vested in some individuals the world must have continued a 
forest and men have been mere animals of prey, winch according to 



51 

some philosophers is the genuine state of nature. Whereas now 
(so graciously has Providence interwoven our duty and our happi- 
ness together) the result of this very necessity has been the enno- 
bling of the human species by giving it opportunities of improving 
its rational faculties, as well as of exerting its natural. Necessity 
begat property, and in order to insure that property, recourse was 
had to civil society, which brought along with it a long train of in- 
separable concomitants ; States, Governments, laws, punishments 
and the public exercise of religious duties. Thus connected togeth- 
er it was found that a part only of society was sufficient to provide 
by their manual labor for the necessary subsistence of all, and leis- 
ure was given to others to cultivate the human mind, to invent use- 
ful arts, and to lay the foundations of science. 

The only question remaining is, how this property became act- 
ually vested, or what it is that gave a man an exclusive right to re- 
tain in a permanent manner that specific land which before belonged 
generally to everybody, but particularly to nobody, and as, we be- 
fore observed, that occupancy gave the right to the temporary nse of 
the soil, so it is agreed upon all hands that occupancy gave also the 
original right" to the permanent property in the substance of the 
earth itself which excludes every one else but the owner from the 
use of it. There is indeed some difference among the writers on 
natural law, concerning the reason why occupancy should convey 
this right, and invest one with this absolute property. Grotins and 
Puffendorf insisting that this right for occupancy is found on a tac- 
it and implied assent of all mankind, that the first occupant should 
become the owner ; and Barbeyrac, Titus, Mr. Locke and others 
holding that there is no such implied assent, neither is it necessary 
that there should be; for 'hat the very act. of occupancy, alone, be- 
ing a degree of bodily labor, is from a principle of natural justice, 
without any consent or compact sufficient of itself to gain a title. A 
dispute that savors too much of nice and scholastic refinement. 
However, both side* agree in lh is, that occupancy is the thing by 
which tin' title was in fact originally gained, every man seizing to 
liia own continued use surh spots nf ground as he found most agree- 
able in hi* own convenience, provided he found tlwm unoccupied by 
any one else." 

If then "while the earth contb ued bare of inhabitants" it and 
all "things were in common;" and "when mankind increased in 
number, craft and ambition, it became necessary to entertain con- 
ception of more permanent dominion and to appropriate to individ- 
uals not the immediate use only, but the very substance of the 
thing to be used." If then, "necessity begat property, and in or- 
der to insure that property recourse was had to civil society" with 
its concomitant facts, "and as we have before observed, that occu- 
pancy gave the right to the temporary use of the soil, so it is agreed 
upon all hands that occupancy gave also the original right to the 
permanent property in the substance of the earth itself, which ex- 
cludes everv one but the owners from the use of it." 



52 

If the foregoing propositions of Mr. Blackstone are true the 
following facts and conclusions re clearly deducible from them. 

(1.) At first, land was held in common by men. (2.) As 
population multiplied, by necessity individuals were confined to 
particular portions of land. (3.) This fact of actual occupation 
and use, conferred all the exclusive rights and privileges one man 
can acquire in land, against all others. 

Now, if these concomitant facts conferred all the original, Indi- 
vidual title to lands on individuals; as these conditions became more 
and more intensified by the eflux of time and growth of population, 
all the modes of reasoning, with which we are acquainted, would 
suggest that at least no enlargment of the estate of individuals held 
in land by original, or acquired as new titles, could take place as the 
effect of the same conditions. If so will some one inform us by what 
process it is reached. 

The logic of the situation is, if these facts and conditions neces- 
sitated and conferred the individual estate, as they increased in in- 
tensity in society, so too, would the limitation upon the estate he 
more deeply and clearly defined. 

And if no no man has, or can acquire title to only such an allot- 
ment, on what principle, or according to what rule of law and jus- 
tice is it that any man, in a sole or aggregate capacity has been, oris 
now, enabled to convey a greater estate in more land, than he or 
they ever could secure ? 

We are carried irresistibly to the conclusion that whenever the 
necessities of society and men demand an investigation of the title of 
a man who "owns" or claims a million, or a thousand acres of land, 
for purpose of "investment" or "speculation," his title falls to the 
ground. It must be subject to the exigencies and necessities of his 
fellow men and of society, to use and occupy for homes. As before 
stated, it is innocent until population increases and men come to 
claim their heritage. Then it becomes, if insisted on, a crime against 
mankind, and men will not be slow to deal with the acts of those 
who do it as such. They have a right to do it. 

Men, in a state of society and civil government are compelled 
to recognize, preserve and enforce the principle of the pre-eminent 
title and estate of all men or society, over the title of an individual. 
Society and its government aims at "the greatest good for the great- 
est number." That principle is preserved in the constitution and 
laws of nationalities and states and legal literature under the title of 
"Eminent Domain." 

It "is the right which the people or government retain over the 
estates of individuals to resume the same for public use." Bouv. 
Law Die. It is in the exercise of this principle that private prop- 
erty is taken from the owner for public use after paying him a "just 
compensation." But, for it, no such lands could be taken for any 
public use, for buildings, docks, streets, alleys, parks, roads, pikes, 
railways or telegraphs. And all the States by virtue of it and the 
necessity of the situation have enacted laws under which proceedings 



53 

may be had on the part of one private owner to condemn the private 
lands of another, to give him a way for the escape and flow of water 
and for a "private road" to and from his possessions, when he has 
been hemmed in and it "is a way of necessity." The language of 
the constitution of the United States on this subject, is "nor shall 
private property be taken, for a public use without just compensa- 
tion." Last clause of Art. V., of Amendments to the Constitution. 
The State Constitutions all have provisions substantially the same. 
It is negative ; in the day and age it was framed encroachments were 
guarded against from the government side of the compact. At that 
time the railway, the telegraph and telephone were not known. But 
that negative provision of our national and State constitutions has 
been construed by the courts to have enough affirmative breadth and 
flexibility, to enable them under the powers retained by it to gov- 
ernment to enact laws to condemn and to condemn private property 
for all these uses on the theory it was and wan to be a pub- 
lie use. Nor is it now contended it was wrong; those enterprises 
could not have been carried* forward by any other rule or principle. 
We are here taught that the main factors in all such situations are 
the exigencies and necessities of society. 

As Christ said of the Sabbath as institution, "it was made for 
man, not man for the Sabbath," so we may say of the constitution; 
it was made for man not man for the constitution. It should be 
borne in mind in these cases the courts proceed upon and it is the 
theory of the law that government or society never parted with its title 
to land to individuals for such purposes ; it retained that title or in- 
terest in them to "resume the same for public use," whenever in its 
opinion expressed by the constitutional authority the legislative de- 
partment it would subserve the end of "the greatest good to the 
greatest number" to do so. And in line with this is the implied 
right and power to thus protect society and we have the whole brood of 
execution and Homestead Exemption and the Bankrupt Laws. They 
are enacted on the theory that the end, "the greatest good to the 
greatest number," justifies the means. And in thousands of in- 
stances the effect of them is that private property is taken for pri- 
vate use for no compensation so that indirectly the common good 
may be and it undoubtedly is thereby subserved. A man owes you 
one thousand dollars ; you procure judgment against him for it. By 
that the judicial department of the government says he owes it to 
you ; he ought to pay and it will assist you by due process of law to 
make it out of his property. 

You show the sheriff eight acres of land on which lie resides 
with his family, worth fifteen hundred dollars, (in Missouri), it is 
different in different States) ; you demand the sheriff levy on it, sell 
it and make deed to you for the land, as a matter of justice between 
man and man. But here you are met with the "Homestead Laws." 
The court and government say to you if the matter of exact justice 
between you and your debtor was the sole consideration in the 
premises, your demand would be complied with. But it is not; so- 



ciety is, in a sense, a party to all these matters ; especially those 
that effect the "home" and "family." They are the atoms of so- 
ciety ; to despoil their home breaks up the family, i&contrarytfb pub- 
lic policy ; and this your debtor is the head of a family. Experi- 
ence has taught it is public policy and subserves the public and gen- 
eral good to protect the home and the law does it by an exemption 
from levy of attachment or execution. And the same of the other 
exemption and the bankrupt laws. It is true the legislative depart- 
ment of our government in 1877 in obedience to the clamor of the 
creditor class turned its back upon the light of the future, to the 
gloom of the past, the day of imprisonment for debt, and repealed 
our humane bankrupt law. 

Indeed its face has been set steadily in that direction for twen- 
ty years as we shall see as we proceed. 

But, the reader may s y what has all this to do with the subject 
in hand, of land and land tenure to-day. It has this and this is my 
argument. If society and government in the exercise of its retain- 
ed title in all lands called "Eminent Domain," can take private 
property for a public use or benefit, for sites for public buildings, 
docks, roads, pikes, streets, rights of way, for railways, elevated 
railways, telegraph and others ; and can and does take private prop- 
erty for private "ways of necessity" for just compensation. And 
can and now does daily indirectly take private property for private 
use for no compensation, but to the public, by means of the execu- 
tion exemption homestead and bankruptlaws. 

Why can it not, in the use and application of the very same 
principles declare by the legislative department, that it is in line 
with public policy and the "greatest good to the greatest number" 
that all persons shall have reasonable a d favorable opportunity to 
make permanent and respectable homes by their own industry and 
effort, and that it is the duty of society and government to see that 
all citizens do have such opportunity. And that to accomplish that 
end. the government now deems it to be its duty to resume its title 
of eminent domain, in all lands not now actually occupied and used 
for actual homes and hold them, subject to be condemned and taken 
from those who now own them, subject to the government title afore- 
said and delivered on terms to those who actually need, receive and oc- 
cupy them, in good faith for the purpose of making homes on the 
'•payment of just compensation." by them to the present holders. The 
law to be so framed as to give the "private persons" as many rights 
and advantages in the condemnatory proceedings as such laws now 
confer on the "artificial persons" in such cases. No we cannot ask 
that, for they can take if they deem it necessary, the last acre of the 
party that was exempt to him from debt. That point must be 
guarded ; the rights of the defendant in the condemnatory proceed- 
ings must be protected so that he shall in no case be reduced in his 
land tenure below a fixed minimum. This would only be treating 
"natural persons" as well before the law as "artificial persons" and 
corporations now are. 



Of course Gould, Vanderbilt, Depew, John Sherman and the 
English, French and other European snobs and lords will file mo- 
tions for new trial and in arrest of judgment they will inform us it 
is unconstitutional, that the constitution and man were both made 
for the corporations instead of vice versa. They will threaten, in- 
deed they and their class have now threatened to get out a writ of 
prohibition from the forum of force. But we think they will soon 
have intimations that the clearer they keep of that court, the better 
it will be for them, horse, foot, bag and baggage. It would in fact, 
in principle, be no innovation whatever. It would in fact fall short 
of the lengths to which these principles have now been carried. No 
change in the constitution of the United States and the States 
would be necessary to do it For it lies with the legislative depart- 
ments of both State a»d United States governments to declare what 
the public uses and benefits are, to which private property can be 
condemned upon payment of just compensation. It is uniformly so 
held by the courts of both. And it would be no innovation on the 
part of the legislative department. They have all now enacted law 
to condemn private property as for a public use for "rights of way," 
for railways, telegraph, through and through all their borders, and 
that too upon lines dictated by little cliques of selfish capitalists, 
who decide where it shall be, or from what points to what one "on 
the most eligible route" and they start through a State from line to 
line and the "most eligible route" is the one on which they can ex- 
tort most "booty" or "boodle," by a species of black mail practic- 
ed, in running in or around the towns and cities along or near the 
the line. The public "use or benefit"' is not consulted in such a 
cast". And they take and condemn whosoever lands suits their pur- 
pose And they may split and dig up the orchard garden and hus- 
band's grave, of the last five acres of the widow's homestead, from 
which the State laws forefended all the State, home and other cred- 
itor : and all this done by a foreign "artificial person" for just 
compensation fi;:ed by the appraiser or a jury. Yes, all the masses 
of the homeless disinherited sons and the daughters of toil of the 
United States, and the States need ask for the nexty thirty years to 
be reinstated in all their rights, have lands sufficient to make per- 
manent, comfortable and respectable homes with ordinary industry 
ami thrift is to stand up. in and on the rights of their God-given 
man and womanhood and ask. yea. demand, in silent tones of au- 
thority ami power of the ballot-box, that they be recognized and 
treated before the law with as much consideration as the '"artificial 
persons" and corporations have been for the last thirty years. 

In that period they have plundered the "public" domain with 
special grants and grid-ironed private domain with rights of way, 
that has had and still has no limitations, only their greedy purposes. 
The legislatures of every State have now gone further in principle 
than they are now asked to go; they have as we have seen provided 
as measures of public policy in two instances that private property 
may be taken for private use ; in one for "a just" and hi the other 



56 

no compensation ; that is the one in the case of "private roads" the 
other the exemptions from execution and the bankrupt laws. For 
although our bankrupt law is now repealed, yet no one denies now 
the constitutional validity of it. And before a citizen's land can 
be taken for a private or public road it must be decided by a court 
of competent jurisdiction, that in the one case it actually is "a way 
of necessity" and in the other, that it is a way of public utility and 
necessity. But all the conditions and sentiments so far are to 
"strain at a gnat," of private interest "and swallow" a corporation 
camel without blinking. 

I have read Mr. Henry George's writings on the subject. His 
arguments for a modification of the present laws on the subject of 
land and land tenure are unanswerable. Nor has there been a re- 
spectable effort to do it. But his theory of land taxation as the 
remedy is as impracticable as are his arguments to show that a rem- 
ed3' must be found unanswerable in my opinion. His theory is to 
tax the lands of those who hold more than their prorata share until 
the tax is a burden and they sell the lands to escape it. It is an 
attempt to do by indirect means, that it is the right and duty of gov- 
ernment and society to do b} r direct summary means, if it is its 
right and duty to do it all all. The masses of the homeless poor of 
our society will be driven to extremities and necessities, they never 
knew before, while the time-serving, double-dealing, irresponsible, 
assessor is parleying with the millionaire and holders of lands and 
the public domain. It simply relegates the question of a remedy 
back to the assessor, the most unreliable and irresponsible branch of 
our present mal-administration and apportionments of the burdens 
of government. For under the present system the assessor in his 
duties mingles all the functions of clerical, administrative and judi- 
cial duties. The more of each of these cloaks of official conduct, 
a man can draw over his acts, the more difficult it is to discover his 
peculations or to fasten responsibility upon him when it is discover- 
ed. So that if it was a matter of fixing a "value" when he must 
from the nature of the cass, exercise his judgment and "discretion" 
nothing short of proof of actual corruption casts either civil or 
criminal liability. In almost every other case he can plead clerical 
"mistake," or other oversight, so that with his and shylock's affida- 
vit and shylock's lawyer who will make common cause with him. we 
think the homeless poor of to-day would see their grand children dy- 
ing beggars at the back door of the land grabbers and assessors, be- 
fore they or any of them would ever reach any relief from that 
source. It is shylocks, the tyrant's own court of back door, back 
room, clerical, beaureauocraey and privacy. Yes, that is the court 
that suits him, where the business is done by knowing winks and 
nods ; only a few present ; no publicity ; no audacious, noisy attor- 
ney with flaming eye, clinched fist and ringing voice of a Patrick 
Henry, stirring the listening masses of the robbed and disinherited 
up to a point of defiant demand of their rights. That class of men 
want no jury, no public trial ; the closeted, in-door one-side privacy 



of a "Star Chamber" where sweet-scented political bawds banter 
and fawn and leer on a hybrid thing, unknown in responsibility to 
either one of the three constitutional departments of the government, 
such as an "assessor," a "railroad commissioner," or a "telegraph 
commissioner" or an "inter-state commerce commission," a sort of 
irresponsible mongrel born of "incorporate greed" and govern- 
mental pusalanimity, and then greed can and does cousin away the 
people's rights and no publicity made of it. Of course the "patri- 
cian" class and the political bawds they employ have very delicate 
matters to discuss that do not bear the wear and tear of open com- 
mon striping of, purple and fine linen at the hands of rough and 
ready, fearless "tribunes" of the common people who believe one 
man and his rights are as good as another, and better too, if he is 
''right ;" and that they always give a "cause" before an honest 
judge and thinking jury. By "political bawds" I mean the class of 
"lawyers" who leave the "forum" where the law as made is interpre- 
ted and applied to the causes as they arise, and go to the legislative 
departments of the government of the United States and of the 
States and there for hire, like a woman of the fave in her vocations, 
so they ply theirs as "lobbyists" by means fair and foul ; by intrigue, 
by undue influence, personal application and sweet-scented, rose- 
tinted "memorials" and other means, labor to secure such legisla- 
tion as will protect their client's interests." I blush for the moral 
and political degenency of my country that will brook the offices of 
such legal and political vermin. It is one thing as an "advocate" 
of the cause of a person "natural or "artificial" "as an officer of 
the court," to assist in 'he interpretation and application of the law 
to and to ascertain what are the facts in the cause. 

If the law is right, it will commend itself. If it is not, the best 
way to insure its repeal is to vigorously enforce it. If its repeal or 
modification is sought, appeal, at election time, to the "source of 
the law-making power" of this country, the people. 

But it is proverbial that when that class of "lawyers" quit the 
"forum" to have the law changed, they appeal, not to the people at 
the polls, or the legislature by a popular petition, but by all the 
ways and means of the "professional lobbyist" we have named. 

They frame and present "bills," — they hang round members 
who have "bills" in charge; they roost on the backs of the chairs 
of "committees;" they have methods of compromise by way of "a 
commission" to suggest. Indeed, this class of talent has of late 
years come so much into demand that the old time Patrick Henry, 
Samuel Adams, James Otis, or Daniel Webster class of advocates, 
who were only great and grand with a living cause, before a living 
public, court and jury, or assembly, are passing to the shades of 
the past ; yes, passing there, with the Peoples Cause and rights, 
they will come back together, if ever. 

The rich scoundrel who has debauched the poor man's wife or 
daughter, does not want the "cause" before an impartial judge 
and jury, in a public trial. No. give him a "commission" and 



58 

"parley" in the back room of his or his attorney's office. That suits 
him. and his cause best. On the same principle the class of men in 
this and every country, who want something for nothing acccording 
to law, want a private, closed-door parley. 

Charles I. and II. wanted the "star chamber" court. Louis 
XVI. wanted to summon "The Notables" of the two oppressing 
"Orders" to deliberate on his and the people's cause, rather than 
"the States General" to settle his controversy with the "third es- 
tate," the people. That is, call the "church and nobles" to settle 
his and their quarrel with the people, in secret. "Liberty, I said, 
is coupled with the public word, and however the public word may 
be abused, it is nevertheless true that out of it arises oratory — the 
aesthetics of liberty. What would Rome and Greece be to us with- 
out their Demosthenes and Cicero? And what would their other 
writers have been had not their language been coined out of the 
orator? What would England be without her host of manly and 
masterly speakers? W r ho of us could wish to see the treasures of 
our civilization robbed of the words of our speakers from Patrick 
Henry to Webster? 

The speeches of great orators are a fund of wealth for a free 
people ; from which the school boy begins to draw when he declaims 
from his Reader, and which enriches, elevates and nourishes the 
souls of the old. Publicity is indispensable to eloquence. No one 
speaks well in secret, before a few. Orators are in this respect like 
poets, their kin, of whom Goethe, "one of the craft," says, they 
cannot sing unless they are heard. "Lieber On Civil Liberty and 
Self Government." Woe betide the people" 1 * cause when it is relegated 
to "star chambers" and "commissions of parley" and the assessor. 

What do you think would have been the result of relegating the 
question of "taxation without representation" back to the "assess- 
ors" or a "joint commission" appointed by his "royal highness" 
and his governors, and the colonists in 177(5? 

What do you think of the client and his cause, who does not 
have the courage or countenance to face the judge and jury while 
his cause is tried in public? If the American people, on this subject 
of Land and Land Tenure, and others, have a cause of which they 
are not ashamed, let them demand a speedy and public trial. In- 
justice sneaks away to hide its deformed head in a star chamber or 
a commission of parley. Justice never fears to raise her head and 
her face, radiant as the sun, pleading her own cause in public. The 
utmost good faith and integrity are conceded to Mr. George in ad- 
vancing his taxation theory ; and his great services to the public are 
recognized. But the utter failure of his theory is apparent. 

Another theory advanced by writers of late years, on the sub- 
ject, as presented, is an actual hindrance to the cause. This is 
what they call "Land Nationalization." Wherever the principles 
'of the common law now obtains, it is now "nationalized" sufficient 
for all practical purposes, by the doctrine to which we have referred, 
that of '•"Eminent Domain " And to sav that it is not. that some 



59 

new principle in that regard must be asserted as a part of the or- 
ganic law of the state, cedes to the opposition a fortress of strength 
the}- do not now actually hold ; and thus adds to the strength of 
their present unjust attitude and demands. The law to condemn 
lands for homesteads, when enacted ought to be uniform, and for 
that reason ought to be enacted by the national legislature, but ad- 
ministered as pari materia of other homestead laws of the states, at 
same time to be complete in a state where there are no such laws, 
if there is or should be such a state. 

In the Appendix will be found the draft of a law we think will 
be found to be applicable, and held to be constitutional by the Su- 
preme Court of the United States and of the States. 



CHAPTER XI. 



COMMERCE — TRANSPORTATION. 



This brings us to the subject of transportation, one branch of 
that of commerce. The word is derived from the Latin ones, trans, 
across, and portare, to carry, and literally means to carry across the 
space between the producers' and the consumers' market. 

We have seen, when men enter the state of society, they are 
compelled, per force of circumstances, to cede some natural rights 
to it, to be exercised by its government. In a savage, untamed 
state, men have and exercise the right of barter, from hand to hand 
or face to face ; and that is all that could be called commerce among 
them. In a state of civilization they are compelled to yield, for all 
practical purposes, this natural right of barter from hand to hand as 
completely as if they were shut in with prison walls. The agricul- 
turalist, the mechanic, the artist, the professional man, cannot take 
the products of his labor and go to the producer of the article he 
wants and there make a barter. All each can do is to send or carry 
his product to the shipping depot to sell, and go to the retail market 
to buy. The great interest of society, indicated by our subject, 
lies between and is all there is for relief, between the producers' and 
consumers' market. And the subject includes the carrying trade, 
of everything portable, including person, property, and intelligence, 
by hand, or horseback, by boat, on wheels, or by wire ; it is all 
transportation. It includes all the means invented and used or that 
may be used by men, to transport themselves, the products of their 
hands and brains, for converse, communion and exchange of com- 
modities. For all these means, no matter what, are the mere inven- 
tions of men to enable them to enable them to bridge over the space 
put, at least widened, between them by society; that is, it would be 
widened without these means to which they resort, the boat, the 
coach, the railroad, the mail, the telegraph and telephone. For so- 
ciety, exhausting, as r does, all the spontaneous means of subsist- 
ence, men are compelled to be and remain at one place, at home, to 



60 

labor and take care of the fruits of their labor to live, and every 
such right ceded by the citizen by the constitution must and does 
from the very nature of things constitute a distinct branch of the 
duties of government in the public service. The natural right of 
the citizen tc redress his own wrongs ceded to government consti- 
tutes when exercised by it the branch of the administration of jus- 
tice — the judicial department. The right ceded to it of "providing 
for the common defense" exercised by it constitutes the "War De- 
partment" and that branch of the public service. 

"To establish post-offices and post roads," constitutes in gov- 
ernment the "Post Office Department." "To levy and collect tax- 
es, duties, imports and excises, to pay debts," exercised by the 
government constitutes the branch of the civil service engaged in 
"the collection of the revenue." "To regulate commerce with 
foreign nations and among the several States and with the Indian 
tribes" confers on government the right and duty to do it, by regu- 
lating by law the two great means by which it is accomplished by 
men in a state of civilization, namely, the means of transportation 
and money. The right to exercise each one of these branches and 
incident duties of government is ceded to if by the citizen with the 
reasonable expectation and tacit understanding that the one ceded 
is to bring to him greater good, than he could gain to retain it. And 
the right, at least the power to exercise it himself is surrendered ; 
and unless government does accept and exercise the trust thus re- 
posed, the right is annihilated and government has betrayed its trust. 
Hence its duty to accept and vigorously exercise it. A public serv- 
ice is one over which all influence or control of private persons for 
private or personal ends, must from the nature of the case be exclu- 
ded. It is one in which all have a common interest and the benefits 
of which all ought to have an equal right to avail themselves. If any 
private person is permitted to make private gains out of any branch 
of the public service it is seen at a glance, all these principles are 
violated. What would we think of a proposition made to pay the 
salaries of the judges of the United States courts out of a per cent 
of the judgments rendered for different values and monies in causes 
on their dockets? Also to permit them or a syndicate to buy the 
court houses and offices used in their various duties and the govern- 
ment rent of them? The same of the post-office and revenue de- 
partments of the public service? And the "syndicate" demand an- 
nually that the rents be made to amount to a certain per cent on the 
"capital stock" invested. And then annually, or as often as suited 
their ideas of business "water the stock" twenty-five or fifty percent? 

What would Americans think or say? And yet there is just as 
much reason and as much authority in the constitution for private 
ownership and control of this property the physical means used by 
it to accomplish these branches of the public service as there is for 
private ownership and control of the property and physical menns 
used by it to accomplish the branch of the public service we are now 
discussing that of transportation. 



61 

Indeed the reasons are stronger or more capable of defence in 
the former than the latter instance. For then the actual value of 
the property used in each instance would be the means of determin- 
ing the public burdens from that source. And in the first instance, 
the property, the real estate and buildings are of such permanent 
nature and so easy to determine their actual value, and the proper- 
ty in the second instance being scattered all over the country, con- 
sisting of rolling stock, telegraph wires and poles, roads and bridg- 
es, all the chances of imposition are in favor of the OAvners of the 
property in the second instance. The only difference is the species 
of property used in the first instance as the means of accomplishing 
those branches of the public service was in existence when the con- 
stitution itself was framed ; and its flagrant violation would not be 
brooked by the living men who framed it by any such means as pri- 
vate ownership. Hence as to that species of property we started in 
and have remained right. But as to the species of property, now 
almost exclusively. used, as the means to accomplish the transporta- 
tion of the country, it was not in existence; it has all been invented 
and created since by private invention and enterprise; and the own- 
ership and control has not yet been changed. 

As to the ownership of that species of property we started in 
and have so far remained wrong. Some of it was protected by pat- 
ents, but they have now nearly all expired to allot it but telephones. 
But because we started, does it argue we shall always remain wrong? 
The exigencies and growth of society in this respect may have been 
as well subserved by that means until now. Grant it — but now an 
exigency has arisen, when it is so no longer. 

Do you challenge the proof ? It can be given. It can be 
proven by the overgrown, proud, insolent corporations, their officers 
and attorneys, who own and control that species of property. The 
proof is this — private gain is made by that means out of the exer- 
cise and performance of the duties of that branch of the public ser- 
vice. Do you deny it? If so, you would deny the sun shines in 
mid day. If they do not. why do these corporations employ their 
ill-gotten gains to send political bawds, called "lobbyists" and their 
attorneys, when they can, to second the motion of the lobby in the 
State and National legislatures? Why did Jay Gould "put r. little 
money where it would do the most good?" Why do that class of 
capitalists show T such extreme sensitiveness to any movement of the 
public in the direction of regulating their extortions if they have no 
gain? 

Their conduct and actions in these respects r re governed by 
the very same motives that stimulates the acts and maneuvers of the 
keeper of a bawdy house when he fears a movement is on foot in 
municipal circles, to interfere with his "vested capital." 

The same that leads to the insane efforts of the liquor traffic to 
postpone its hour of doom. If that class of capitalists have no ad- 
vantages over other classes of •'investment," why do thev ask or 



-62- 

demand separate "tribunals" and special legislation? Why will 
they stoop to the mortification of governmental interference with 
their so-called "rights," by inter-state commerce bills and "State 
Commissioners?" Like the distiller under the revenue laws, treat- 
ed as a rogue in all his business by government, locked in and out 
of his own house, the}' can stand it for the per cent of unholy ex- 
orbitant gain made out of this branch of the public service. Did 
the reader ever think of the vicious violation of the constitution and 
of private right that is involved in this one thing of permitting pri- 
vate gain and advantage from the exercise of a public function and 
service? It overturns all constitutional government. It is on the 
high road to absolutism. Even to permit government to charge any 
more than to make that branch of the public service self-sustaining 
or all of them self-sustaining, violates every constitutional safe- 
guard and may ruin the citizen. 

If more than enough to make the service self-sustaining is taken 
where is the limit? Inside the constitution is safety ; outside is in- 
finity, uncertainty, tyranny. 

If more is taken how much more? And in this branch of the 
public service all taken more than enough to make the service self- 
supporting, is taken from the producer and consumer. It levies a 
direct tax on them. Levied by whom? The legislative department 
of the government to whom they ceded the right to tax I hem? No, 
but by private greed and cupidity. For what purpose? The one 
they authorized for "the general welfare and the common defense?'' 
Sec. 8, Art. I, Con. U S. No, but to make up the per cent de- 
manded by scoundrels and ingrates on their "watered stock." If 
the principle is admitted there is no limit, but that of human cupidi- 
ty as hungry as the open grave. By it alone in this one branch of 
the public service, men in a state of society may be subjected to the 
rigors of a situation not known to men even in a savage state. 

For barter is gone — they ceded that right or the power to do it 
to government. 

It abdicates government on that subject and farms out that 
branch of the public service to a class of "tax gatherers" and ex- 
tortioners. The longer it is tolerated the further we go away from 
right principles ; the greater the accumulatations of the ill-gotten 
gains and capital to be thus pitted directly in a fight against the pub- 
lic welfare; the greater the ferocity will be shown when the attempt 
is made to get back to right principles. 

To permit the accumulation of gains to private persons as own- 
ers and operators of the means by which a public service is accom- 
plished violates the basic principle that obtains everywhere else in 
business and the administration of law. that a man as a judge, a 
juryman in any business relation or trust will not be allowed to sit 
in judgment on his own cause ; or on one exactly the same as anoth- 
er pending in which he is directly interested. If a man is allowed 
any avenue to gain in the use or control of the means by which this 
or any branch of the public service is performed, then he has some 



63— 

discretion, some choice as to the means, where and how he will use 
it ; and the temptatio i is too great for human frailty to bear. 

To giveama<i in such a case such control and means and hope 
of gain from his own acts, would in principle be the same as putting 
the owner of the land on the jury when the railroad and corporation 
was valuing and condemning his land for "a right of way." It vi- 
olates the common basic principles of business, as declared by the 
courts every day in the administration of justice ; namely, that a 
trustee of a fund, or for the performance of a function, as "trust- 
ee of an express trust,*' will not be ptrmitted to so manage the fund 
or perform the duty or function so as to make personal gain out of 
his trust. 

For, say the courts, human experience has taught, that human 
nature is too frail and the wiles of human cupidity too devious to 
cede to a man any such right or discretion in such situation. 

The overgrown railroad and telegraph corporations that now 
own that property of the country, were compelled to ask of society 
through its government, the legislatures and the courts, that it re- 
sume its title of "Eminent Domain,"' retained in all lands held by 
private persons and then cede that title to them on the ground they 
were and were going to be public servants; were going to perform 
a public service, transportation, as trustees of a public trust ; and 
thereby thus secured their rights of way over and through private 
property. But now their "trust" in violation of business and con- 
stitutional principles and good faith must be prostituted to the ends 
of private gain to pay great per cents on "watered stock." 

The increased population demand and consumption of the coun- 
try make the great interests in transportation possible in its present 
proportions and yield its immense revenues. The people in their 
sovereign capacity have a vested interest in it that is prior to and 
gives them the right to control it, for public good. They succeeded 
to their rights of way upon the pretense they were and would be 
public servants. Let the people hold them to that promise. Hu- 
man experience has taught the courts in their administration of jus- 
tice, that human cupidity and greod is unmanagable, untamable, 
fern naturae. "Give it an inch it will take an ell." Give it one 
iota of discretion, one avenue to personal gain in the management 
of interests not its own in the exercise of the "functions of a trust," 
the flood-gate is up. the torrent swells and is beyond control. The 
only way to deal with it in such a case, is to cut off discretion, all 
hope, all motive to resort to the machinations that may bring person- 
al gain ; and strip the "trustee" of it even if he does make it. 
Hence they have laid down the rule to which we referred. Our ex- 
perience for the last thirty years in this country emphasizes the wis- 
dom of this rule. 

The only possible relief to the American people from the grow- 
ing abuses to which they have been and are now subjected by this 
branch of the public service, is in taking from "these trustees of an 
express trust," all power* and opportunity to make and all hope of 



-un- 
making private gain out of this branch of the public service, out of 
the matter of their trust. As we proceed to investigate this subject 
upon principle, we find that it, like all other interests and laws that 
are wrong ; that enables one man or class of men to do to others as 
they would not others do to them, violates all the safeguards of the 
social compact and the constitution. As we have seen these corpor- 
ations take private lands by an exercise of the right of government, 
of its retained title of eminent domain and upon the claim that they 
are and are going to be public benefactors and "trustees of a public 
trust." But who says in the first instance, when or what line, they 
shall build their roads? that a fourth or a fifth line is necessary to 
the public convenience from Kansas City to Chicago, or from Chica- 
go to New York? Even in a matter of no more public importance 
than the taking of private property for a wagon road, to do it an ap- 
plication for it must be presented to proper court in the county 
where it is desired, alleging it is one of public utility and necessity 
and it be proven to the satisfaction of the court ; whether it is or nor, 
in the special case, is a judicial question and made so by the legis- 
latures of the States. The legislatures declare the terms on which 
private property may be condemned for such roads and then leave 
it to these courts to say when, where and in what particular in- 
stances lands shall be taken for such purpose. 

But who decides the fifth line of railroad from points indicated 
that will take one hundred times as much private property is one of 
necessity and public utility? Who decided they should go from 
this point to that "on the most eligible route ;" who decides what- 
ever that is when they start? It may be answered the legislature, 
or Congress, or both, gave them charters to do it. But whether in 
fact such necessity and utility exists, is a matter of judicial investi- 
gation, that the legislative department has no right to make, and no 
means or time to make if it did have the power. As a matter-of- 
fact we know they never pretend to make any such. The only body 
that determines this question is a little clique of adventurers or cap- 
italists, who meet in a hotel parlor and decide it on considerations like 
this : Will it be the "shortest line ;" will it enable us to lay an em- 
bargo upon this "coal," "lumber." "oill," "timber," or "agricul- 
tural"' district? Is not such and such lines now on the verge of 
bankruptcy? Will not our enterprise be the finishing stroke, so we 
can bag it at foreclosure sale at half cost and completely control a 
whole State, or part of a State's commerce, as to its transportation? 

And the real only true consideration, that of the public utility 
and necessity, never once enters into their computation. But they 
decide to call for a charter ; a few party hacks are seen ; their attor- 
neys arrange matters ; they get the charter and start swaggering 
through the State; surveying here, there; blackmailing this or that 
town, city or community, and the "most eligible route" is the one 
along whose line lays the richest bribes. 

And this is nT)t an overstatement of the matter. Yet this is one 
branch of the public service of a great commercial, free, intelligent. 



65 

people ; the greatest in the world. This very day a corporation 
is competing with the public and the community with a "Land Com- 
pany" laying out and speculating in towns and town lots in open 
violation of the constitution and laws of this State — Missouri. 

As already stated, when the present constitution of the United 
States was framed, encroachments upon the liberties of the people 
were guarded, from the government side of the compact. Nearly 
all its terms as to grants, even of power, are negative. The revolu- 
tionary fathers, Avith the smell of burning powder of the tyrant still 
in their nostrils, the blood of their co-patriyts scarce washed from the 
earth, where it was shed by his minions, guarded closely every av- 
enue to advance to government "prerogatives." 

The English parliament and royal claims of absolute power were 
the source from whence came their late afflictions. Hence, even the 
conservative constitution as left and signed by the original framers, 
Washington and his compeers, was soon modified by the family of 
the first eleven Amendments 

And it will be observed that in each of them the jealous people 
were still fencing against the governmental encroachment or pre- 
rogative. Then they did not know the danger that lies in aggregat- 
ed capital centered in the hands of soulless, heartless corporations ; 
and encroachments on their rights, from that approach, was left ut- 
terly unguarded. There was not a "millionaire" in the United 
States until about 1840. Now the people find the worst enemy mod- 
ern civilization and civil liberty has, right in their rear, right among 
them, on their own side of the bulwarks. 

But when they once fully recognize, they will still be masters of 
the situation. It will only be the rank and file, the horse and foot 
of the army turned loose on the rebellious bag and baggage train. 
For the last fifteen years a conviction has grown upon the American 
people they must do something in the premises. They have half 
grasped the idea, they hare the right arid power to regulate these 
corporations under the power of Congress to "regulate commerce." 
Hence we have a multitude of ephemeral imbecile efforts coming 
from the nerve centers of the body politic nearest the afflictions of 
the suffering, the state legislatures, in the shape of acts to provide 
for "Railroad Commissioners," with various powers; and finally 
culminating in "An Act To Regulate Interstate Commerce" by 
Congress. 

No real, permanent relief need ever be expected from any such 
legislation. It will be demonstrated that none was intended to be 
given by the provisions of the "Interstate Commerce" act. Its 
terms and provisions are utterly unconstitutional, in violation of all 
legal and business principles, and we do not hesitate to say, that if 
the "Commission" appointed under its provisions did, to any con- 
siderable degree, interfere with the dictates of greed of the great 
corporations, they would assail and overthrow it on that ground, 
and will do it, if it ever does. All such legislation is actually wrong 
in principle and unconstitutional, in that it cedes to these corpora- 



66 

tions the right to own and control the property used in this branch 
of the public service. It concedes and grants to them the right to 
make ''■private gains" out of that management and control. It 
grants to a nameless something, a legal and political hybrid called a 
"commission," with the "consent and advice" of the railroad offi- 
cers, stock-holders, and attorneys, to say what is or is not "a reason- 
able charge" for their "services" to the public in this matter. 

We shall discuss the "Interstate Commerce Act" of Congress 
as typical of the whole brood. Pitiful and contemptible as it is, it 
marks an era in the history of the World's Republic. When it 
grasped and commenced to wrestle with the untamed beast whose 
jaws drip with the blood of all the civilizations of the past, that has 
fastened its poisoned fangs in their quivering flesh and held its grip, 
although it could see it and civilization were dying together ; that is 
centralized corporate, incorporate, class privilege and wealth. We 
humbly beg leave to call the attention of the patriots who roused 
and beyed the tiger in his den, in insisting upon some act of this 
sort, to the mistakes made in it, so they may not be repeated. 

We cannot do this better than to give verbatim quotations from 
the "Report" of "The Interstate Commerce Commission" itself, 
prepared and signed by all of its members, five in number, dated 
Dec. 1st, 1887, and made in compliance with the terms of the Act, 
to "The Secretary of the Interior." It is a public document of 
more than ordinary interest, printed at public expense, composed of 
forty-three pages, and ought to be read by every thinking Ameri- 
can. It will convince all such that the American people asked 
"bread" of Congress, and, as usual, for thirty years, incorporate 
greed and the U. S. Senate "gave them a s one." 

But to the "Report." After stating the act requires them to 
suggest "amendments" they may deem necessary," and quot- 
ing a part of it, they give us some important railroad statistics, un- 
doubtedly furnished by the railroad corporations. The railroad 
milage of the United States, computed to the end of the fiscal year 
1886, was 133,606. The number of corporations representad in it, 
1,426; but by consolidating and leasing the "controling" ones was 
reduced to 700, It is estimated that 4^380 miles had been construct- 
ed since the above facts were adduced. "The Commission has as 
yet no statistics of its own collection to lay before the public, but a 
manual generally accepted as reliable"— (kindly put to their elbows 
by railroad officers and attorneys), gives this bit of information: 
"The construction and equipment of the 133,606 miles of road is es- 
timated at $7,254,995,233, and the funded debt of the companies at 
$3,822,966,330. Interest, according to the same authority, was 
paid by these companies, for the last fiscal year, to the amount of 
$187,365,540, and the aggregate pavment to stockholders, in divi- 
dends, was $80,064,138."— Pages land 2. 

We ask thinking Americans to dwell here a moment. Take 
these corporations and their "commission" at their word, for it is 
evident, as we proceed, that these "commissioners." some of them 



67 

late railroad attorneys themselves, on high salaries, are under their 
influence. Then the cost of the 133,606 is $54,301 per mile. Every 
man in the United States capable of attending to his "own affairs," 
knows that to be as base a falsehood as ever was written and pub- 
lished by a subsidized officer at public expense, to overawe a suf- 
fering people. This conclave of railroad attorneys did not stoop to 
give the information of the cost of the last 4,380 miles constructed. 
To do it was to lay themselves open to contradiction, as the inform- 
ation is at hand to do it successfully. Again, they pay — 

Interest on this "watered stock," • $187,356,540 

Dividends " " " 80,094,138 

Total for the last fiscal year, $267,450,678 

And on their own showing they have farmed that year 3.7 per 
cent., almost 4 per cent., income on the $54,301 per mile. The 
annual tax per capita to the people of the United States is $5.17, for 
the support of this "branch of the public service." This table of 
falsehood was presented by the "commission" to stupify, dumfound 
and overawe the mind, so it would be prepared to receive the fol- 
lowing far/i iliar style of railroad attorney literature: "Some idea 
of the magnitude of the interest which the act undertakes to regu- 
late, may be obtained from these figures, but they fall far short of 
measuring, or even of indicting its importance. (The old men wax 
more valiant and eloquent in the railroad cause as they proceed. ) 
The regulation of no other business would concern so many or such 
diversified interests or would affect in so many ways, the results of 
enterprise, the prosperity of commercial and manufacturing ven- 
tures, the intellectual and social intercourse, or the general comfort 
and convenience of the citizen in his every day life." Very true; 
but is ii possible that the American people as to all these sacred in- 
terests are to be at the mercy of greedy corporations who hold them 
all in their greedy fists and farm their necessities for big profits on 
"watered stock?" 

These considerations do not occur to these five "commissioners" 
in this or any other connection. 

The obvious effort of all of it is to impress on the people this 
interest is greater than they are. They have now done all they 
ought to attempt We pass over their observation on the growth of 
commerce, very interesting, to page 10 of the Report, where they 
state "the leading features of the act," which they fairly do as fol- 
lows: (1). "All charges made for services by carriers subject to 
this act shall be reasonable and just. Every unreasonable and un- 
just charge is prohibited and declared to be unlawful." (2.) "The 
direct or indirect charging, demanding, collecting or receiving, for 
an} T service rendered a greater or less compensation from any one 
or more persons, than from any other for a like and contempora- 
neous service is declared to be unjust discrimination and is prohib- 
ited." 



68 

(3.) "The giving of undue or unreasonable preference, as be- 
tween persons or localities or kinds of traffic or the subjecting any 
one of them to undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage is 
declared to be unlawful." 

(4.) "Reasonable, proper, and equal facilities for the inter- 
change of traffic between lines and for the receiving, forwarding and 
delivering of passengers and property between connecting lines is re- 
quired and discrimination in rates and charges as between connect- 
ing lines is forbidden." 

(5.) "It is made uulawfnl to charge or receive any greater 
compensation in the aggregate for the transportation of passengers 
or the like kind of property under substantially similar circumstanc- 
es and conditions for a shorter, than a longer distance over the same 
line in the same direction, the shorter being included in the longer 
distance." 

(6.) "Contracts, agreements, or combinations for the pooling 
of freights of different and competing railroads, or dividing between 
them the aggregate or net earnings of such railroads or any portion 
of them are declared to be unlawful." 

(7). "All carriers subject to the law are required to print their 
tariffs for the transportation of persons and property, and to keep 
them for public inspection at every depot or station on their roads. 
An advance in rates is not to be made until ten days public notice, 
but a reduction may be made to take effect at once, the notice of 
the same being immediately and publicly given. The rates publicly 
notified are to be the maximum as well as the minimum charges 
which can be collected or received for the services respectively for 
which they purport to be established." 

(8.) "Copies of all tariffs are required to be filed with this com- 
mission, which is to be promptly notified of all changes that shall be 
made in the same. Joint tariffs of connecting roads are also re- 
quired to be filed and also copies of all contracts, agreements or ar- 
rangements between carriers in relatioi to traffic affected by the 
act. ' ' 

(9.) "It is made unlawful for any carrier to enter into any com- 
bination, contract or agreement, express or implied, to prevent by 
change of time, schedules, carriage in different cars, or by means 
or devices the carriage of freights from being continuous from the 
place of shipment to the place of destination." 

"All charges shall be reasonable and just," but there is no 
sanction, no penalty for a violation. What a wonderful declaration 
that is? How much better the poor, robbed, harrassed people must 
feel. Yes. "the mountain (the railroad officers, attorneys and the 
U. S. Senate) labored and brought forth a blind mous©." Let men 
who have common sense ask ; what is a reasonable charge ? Who 
shall decide what is such charge ? Heretofore the railroads "charged," 
the people "paid," obeyed. Now, if Congress really is going to 
"regulate commerce," right here is the very place to commence. 

If it does not. no matter what else it does, the whole is a 



69 

"sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." Did it do it? Not a 
word of it. What did it do? "Relegated the question back" to 
the railroad officers, attorneys and the commission." How is it done? 
The act provides, say the "commission," that "all carriers subject 
to the law are required to print their tariffs, for the transportation 
of persons and property and to keep them for public inspection at 
every depot or station on their roads." * * "Copies of 
all tariffs are required to be filed with this commission, which is 
also to be notified of all changes that shall be made in the same." 
So the railroads still "change" "reasonable charges;" but must no- 
tify the five commissioners of the last "amendment." Who shall 
"regulate commerce?" The constitution says Congress. Is the 
saying or deciding what "is a reasonable and just charge" for servi- 
ces by carriers a part of that subject? Every person of sense knows 
it is the verj r essence of it. Who shall "regulate commerce," ac- 
cording to this act? The "commission," by and with the advice, 
consent and printed tariff of the corporations furnished to them. It 
is a function delegated to the Congress, the law making department 
of the government. It is as much a function of Congress to do it, 
as it is to fix the rates for postage on the classes of mail matter ; 
"to coin and regulate the value of money;" to fix rates of tariff 
duties on imports and regulate "weights and measures." It cannot 
"regulate commerce" in letter or spirit, without doing it. It was 
not intended by this act that it should do it, in any way to inter- 
fere with the tyrannical impositions of the railroad corporations. 

In our minds we see this "Commission" "regulating commerce" 
in this regard. Complaint is made in this "court" or "legislature" 
or convocation of railroad constables (for it is to exercise the func- 
tions of all of them) that a "charge is not just and reasonable." 
Hats off, gentlemen, for now the five old grand dames called the 
commission, are going into "committee of the whole" to legislate. 
We see them in imposing array." Each with a railroad "tariff 
rate" in hand, a corporation president at one and a vice-president 
at the other elbow, and two railroad attorneys roosting on the back 
of his chair. 

Thus lobbied and panoplied we think we see the five perfuncto- 
ry legislative fingers, eager for an "unreasonable charge" as they 
slide down the tables of rates. The country is liable to hear some- 
thing fall from Maine to Oregon. 

The weary masses heave a sigh of relief? but there was no cor- 
poration cyclone or earthquake ; the "commission" and the lobby 
finally agreed ; and the "legislature" wiped its pensive brow after 
its Baconian labor, and the people sweat under their old burdens. 
On page 11 they reach the subject: (1.) "The carriers subject 
to its (the act's) jurisdiction," and from that to page 15 they 
wrestle with the momentous question, whether they are to "legislate" 
and be "court" and "constable" to regulate express companies. 

After weighing the matter with wonderful railroad attorney le- 
gal accumen and splitting hairs with trembling solicitude, lest these 



70 

companies should expose the whole fraud, they inform us they will 
parley with and tease the express companies with like effect as rail- 
roads, for they are supposed to be included in the act. On page 15 
they reach "the long and short haul clause of the act." The people 
reached the "water-haul' 1 clause of the whole thing when they 
reached the one that left it to the railroad corporations and com- 
missioners to fix the charges. 

That those features of the act were made in the interest, and 
have inured to the benefit of the corporations, is well known. But 
it is discussed with great gravity. After proceeding over four pages, 
in which all we learn is that they did not know what the provisions 
of the act did mean, they conclude as follows: 

"The act to regulate commerce was not passed to injure inter- 
ests, but to conserve and protect. 1 ' "Acting on these 
views, and in order to give opportunity for full discussion, the 
'commission,' after having made sufficient investigation into the 
facts of each case to satisfy itself that a prima facie case for its in- 
tervention existed, made orders for relief, under the fourth section, 
where such relief was believed to be the most imperative. 

And then the "commission" was put on wheels and went over 
the country "legislating," and now sitting to "parley" with railroad 
attorneys and their victims, (page 19.) On page 20 these commis- 
sioners admit in "some instances" they regulated the "long and 
short haul" by raising the rate of the "long haul." That was re- 
lief with a vengeance, for the people. "The considerations which 
were influential in determinipg when these temporary orders should 
be granted were not more the relief of the carriers from danger of 
loss than the threatened disturbances of business interests in certain 
localities, which by its reflex action seemed liable to embarrass seri- 
ously the entire country." — Page 20. 

Was the intelligence of the American people ever before insult- 
ed by such stilted nonsense? That is administration of justice with 
a vengeance. That is to say. to-day the "court" or legislature 
made a law, or the law, and then rendered judgment, or made a 
"temporary order," and to-morrow changed the law and vacated 
the judgment or "order." Undoubtedly this was promptly done 
when the "commission" was shown it was necassary to the relief of 
the carriers from danger of loss. And of this drivel and nonsense 
to page 23, when they reach the subject, "The Filing and Publica- 
tion of Tariffs." 

They say, "But though the carriers make and file their tariffs, 
as required by the act, there is no general uniformity to the tariffs 
or to the classifications, either in forms or in general methods of 
preparation." That is to say, the corporations now, as they ever 
have, still do just as they please in these matters. And we are in- 
formed that the $100,000 appropriated for the first year's operation 
of the "commission," is inadequate to employ the clerical force 
deemed necessary to take charge of and classify the "one hundred 
and ten thousand books, papers and documents, showing rates, 



71 

fares and charges for transportation, and contracts, agreements or 
arrangements between carriers in relation to interstate traffic" (page 
24) that have been dumped in on the old grand dames. The only 
wonder is, they are on top of it. But that mass of stuff is very ini- 
partiuit Yes, those rates, fares, charges and contracts and agree- 
ments or arrangements between carriers for pooling and other ille- 
gal purposes, embodies the law of "the reasonable and just charges" 
fixed by the railroads and dumped on the grand dames. Yes, they 
ought to have ten thousand clerks and a special train of twenty-five 
sleepers, with an engine at each end, so that when the court or leg- 
islature goes on wheels it can go in a style becoming its dignity, 
and take its clerks and records all right along. And let the people 
pay for it. 

On page 24 they reach the subject, ''General Supervision of 
the Carriers Subject to the Act." 

"It is provided in the twelfth section of the act "that the com- 
mission hereby created shall have authoritj' to inquire into the man- 
agement of the business of all common carriers subject to the pro- 
visions of this act and shall keep itself informed as to the manner 
and method in which the same is conducted and shall have the right to 
obtain from such common carrier full and complete information nec- 
essary to enable the commission to perform the duties and carry out 
the objects for which it was created. * 

"This is a very important provision and the commission will no 
doubt have frequent occasion to take action under it. It will not 
hesitate to do so in any case in which a mischief of public impor- 
tance is thought to exist and which is not likely to be brought to its 
attention, on complaint of a private prosecutor." 

The five old dames are growing brave ; we wot not the railroad 
corporations trembled when they read this. Yes, when the venera- 
ble quintette of legal profoundly in addition to its "legislature," 
"court" and "constable" functions, resolves itself into a grand 
jury or "smelling committee" of the whole ; well, yes, then the dear 
people will get relief with a vengeance. But they are not liable to 
do anything rash — no, they will wait to see if a "private prosecutor" 
will make "complaint." 

But, if no one does, hats off again, gentlemen! for now, after a 
vigorous use of the bandana, each of the venerable quintette 
with his olfactories distended to the last degree of tension, is on the 
wind for railroad crookedness. Each one is out with a writ of "cum 
and ketchem ;" and where do they go to get "information," on 
which to (1) make the law as a legislature. (2) file an "information" 
verified by the quintette of official olfactories, (3) after that is filed 
then take the bench and try the delinquent law breaker and his 
cause ? 

As we said, they are not liable to do anything very rash against 
the railroad corporations. 

No ! they go to the officers of the delinquents to get evidence 
on which to proceed ; go to the rogues themselves to get evidence on 



72 

which "to take action." Yes, "this is a very important provision," 
it constitutes them "teasers" of the railroads for the people; they 
are "heap big Injun" in the "parley." 

We come next, on page 24, to title V, "Complaints to and Ad- 
judications by the Commission." 

We suppose now they have found a "case" that requires them 
to "take action." 

They file "inform tion," make the law and take the bench, to 
try the cause — something is liable to be done. But since all the 
judgments and "orders" of this tribunal are temporary and relate 
to the future and since the railroads still retains the right "to change 
the rates," by "giving prompt notice of the change" (page 24) just 
before this profound and august "court" gets at the trial of the 
"cause," the railroad corporation, files an amendment of the law and 
"tariff" of "reasonable and just charges" and then? Well yes! 
then the court is hung to say the least. It now lays off the lion's 
skin of judicial rigor and the legislative donkey goes into "parley" 
with the defendant, the criminal who changed the law to save his 
hide and suit his case. For shame upon such stilled drivel. 

And now let thinking Americans hang their heads in shame as 
we read the following as to the relief granted to a private prosecu- 
tor should he make complaint. 

"The Commission when such complaints have been brought to 
a hearing, has not discovered in the statute a purpose to confer upon 
it the general power to award damages in the cases of which it may 
take cognizance. The failure to provide in terms for a judgment 
and execution, is strong negative testimony against such a purpose ; 
but what is more conclusive is that the act must be so construed as 
to harmonize with the seventh amendment, to the federal constitu- 
tion, which preserves the right of trial by jury, in common lawsuits." 
Page 27. 

A solemn admission in so many words, by these "legislators" 
"judges" or constables, grand jurors or what not, that no matter 
whether they have a "cause," or not, they can render no judgment 
to make any reparation for any past injury or to punish for any 
wrong the corporation may have committed. But they prate in 
stilted legal terms about orders, temporary orders, this tribunal 
making orders that can only relate to the future. That is they or- 
der the corporations, to do, or not do, so or so in the future, and 
the "relief" is that the railroad officers promise, or do not promise. 

If they do or do not, it matters not, for if they do. this com- 
mission on its own solemn admission is powerless to "award dama- 
ges" even or render a judgment or award an execution. Yet this 
quintette of legal profundities draw, with marked punctuality $7,500 
per annum each and have the sublime impudence to ask for greater 
appropriations to heap upon the people. And now we reach page 
27 and the title "Proceedings before the Commission." We think 
a truthful statement of "The Proceedings Behind the Commission 
and the Curtains," would be of more importance to the American 



people. We are informed that the proceedings are informal and we 
should think as much. It is undoubtedly on the parley, tease, 
smell, order. It is a humiliating spectacle ; this so-called "tribunal." 
that was to stand between the corporations and their abominable op- 
pressions of the people, has no power, no dignity, no sanction, for 
its orders or judgments, indeed, can render no judgment. It is clear 
from the half apologetic style of stilted nonsense that they are in 
sympathy with the corporation oppression ; or are spiritless pension- 
ers, hanging on the corporation influence, as it is well-known that 
even this pitiful, nameless thing, the commission owes its existence 
to the corporation permission. It is this tribunal in which they 
make the law, declare the rates by which the people's cause against 
them shall be tried ; or as they decree, not tried at all. On page 28 
they treat the subject, VII, "Expense of Hearing." And we are 
informed, that even if on a "hearing" they should make an "order" 
against a corporation that it, was doing unlawful acts," and should 
cease them, still it could not even tax the costs against the losing 
party, and it and its attorneys could go "out of court" making faces 
at the pitiful dupe, who knew no better than to think there was some 
relief here against their oppression ; and in view of this situation we 
are informed, with great profundity, that they have sought to get 
the "parties to agreeuponthe facts." Yes, and then the corporations 
make the law and rate, and they are not liable to be demolished 
by a temporary order made. 

But when that did not avail and there were many witnesses, 
since "the mountain would not come to Mohamet, Mohamet would 
come to the mountain." And the quintette would take (we suppose 
special train and a sleeper apiece) and go to the "cause" and legis- 
late and decide it. Next page, 29, is title "Annual Reports of Car- 
rier," of no interest to any one. On page 30 we come to title 
"Classification of Passengers and Freight." 

And by a careful reading of the six pages devoted to this sub- 
ject, the intelligent reader, can come to but one conclusion ; that is 
that this whole subject now, as it always has been, is still in the 
hands and absolute control of the corporations. Many observations 
are made, that would be appropriate if made in a speech by a rail- 
road Congressman or Senator on the floor of the House or Senate, 
on a bill pending that threatened to actually "regulate commerce ' 
by fixing by law "reasonable and just charges; but to come from 
this "Commission," this legal and political nullivs fit'lliux, sitting 
up like five old owls to legislate on this subject of vital importance 
to the American people would be ridiculous if it were not such a 
badge and spectacle of the subjection of the people and their politi- 
cal shame. 

After discussing whether freight rates should be based upon 
bulk or value of articles, and deciding according to the dictates of 
private greed, "It was therefore seen not to be unjust to apportion 
the whole cost of service among all the articles transported, upon a 
basis that should consider the relative value of the service more 



than the relative cost of the carriage." And thus you will see, these 
old owls echo railroad "views" in all these matters. 

Certainty, to them and the railroads, the "value of the service" 
is not the main thing ; the corporations must have "the pound of 
flesh" without regard to actual cost of transportation. And they 
think they have established the railroad argument with this observa- 
tion: "Such a system of rate making would, in principle, approxi- 
mate taxation, the value of the articles carried being the most im- 
portant element in determining what shall be paid upon it." 

But it does not once occur to the minds of this quintette of old 
legal railroad owls, that the whole subject not only "in principle 
approximates,* 1 but actually is "taxation.'' And that the whole 
subject belongs to Congress ; that Congress cannot delegate that 
function to either one of the other two co-ordinate departments of 
the government, the Judicial or the Executive, and much less to 
them. No such measure of relief to the over-ridden down-trodden 
people ever occurs to their astute legal understanding ; they do not 
"suggest an amendment" on that line. No, that would be more 
than. apolitical opiate; that would be more than was intended by the 
greedy corporations and the venal U. S. Senate. That would can- 
cel their lien on the $7,500 per annum. They would not get an al- 
lowance of a few $100,000 more to hire a thousand or so clerks to 
record the "one hundred and ten thousand books, papers, agree- 
ments,'' et cetera, furnished them by the corporations, and that in- 
cludes the law of the United States on the subjects of "reasonable 
and just charges." That would invade the policy of "how to seem 
and pretend, and yet actually do nothing. 

And on page 33 we come to the subject of * "Voluntary As- 
sociation of Railroad Managers." Our Commission seems to know 
more about this than aiy other part of the matter in hand. Yes, 
they know too much on that subject to be worth a fig to the inter- 
ests of the people. The whole "Report'" has corporation "ring" 
and "smell;" it has no other, and my witness will be every intelli- 
gent person who reads it. An argument is first made to disabuse 
the public mind of its prejudice against "consolidation" and 
"pooling of freights." It is demonstrated, by quoting rates, that 
the latter, especially, has been a great public bleafting. 

Before "pooling" rates in 1877, by The TrunkLine Association, 
the rates charged on the first, second, third and fourth classes of 
freights from New York to Chicago were respectively $1.00, 75, 60 
and 45 cents a hundred pounds. They are now 75, 65, 50 and B5 
cents, but the classification as to many articles has in the meantime 
been reduced, so that the actual reduction is greater than these fig- 
ures would indicate." 

Yes, the poor devil in Kansas, Nebraska, Dakota, Iowa or Mis- 
souri, who ships corn, oats or wheat to New York, will have to send 
along only about two bushels to pay the "reasonable aid just 
charge" of freight on the third ; and he is doing well at that, in the 
estimation of these old owls, who receive $7,500 per annum to make 



and print railroad corporation arguments at government expense, 
And they goon to show that a "similar result has been apparent 
elsewhere." These "good Samaritans," the railroad corporations, 
have been pouring the oil of "pooled rates" on the wounds of the 
public in a very neighborly fashion. And as a clinching argument 
in favor of "pooling," we are informed it "takes away the motive to 
consolidate."' And we are in effect told, if we do not permit them 
to "pool" they will "consolidate," by "leases" and other means, in 
spite of us and our valiant grand dames of the commission. And 
having thus demonstrated that "pooling" is a great benefaction, 
they quote the provisions of the interstate law on the subject, posi- 
tively forbidding it, as follows: "That it shall be unlawful for any 
common carrier subject to the provisions of this act to enter into 
any contract, agreement, or combination, with any other common 
carrier or carriers, for the pooling of freights of different and com- 
peting railroads," (page 34.) 

So there seems to have been a difference of opinion between 
Congress and the commission on this subject. But that is imma- 
terial. Congress, in fact, abdicated its control over the subject, 
and "relegated it back" to the commission, to act "with the advice 
and consent'' of the corporations. We suggest that the five old 
donkeys shed their judicial ermine and lions' skins, and, with the 
"advice and consent" of the railroad lobby, repeal that obnoxious 
provision of the law. They have just as much and the same author- 
ity to legislate on that subject as on the one of fixing "reasonable 
and just charges of freights. They do not in so many words sug- 
gest to Congress to "amend," by such repeal, but that is all the 
meaning all they say on the subject has. We apprehend the sage 
observations on that subject, are matters of compromise and come 
from a divided "court?" or "legislature," or lobby. And here is 
another matter of comfort to the afflicted public. "Classification, 
also as has been said is not by the act taken out of the hands of the 
carriers, though a certain power of supervision in the commission, 
and classification is not only best made by joint action, but if it were 
not so made and the methods of the roads thereby brought into har- 
mon} 7 , it would probably become indispensable however undesirable 
it might otherwise be for the law to undertake to provide for it." 
(Page 35.) So reader, here you see these tyrannical carriers by 
joint action with these five old donkeys and apologizers for their 
abuses and oppressions are regulating themselves in all these mat- 
ters. Again we ask, was the intelligence and good sense of the 
American people before insulted by such stilled drivel and high 
sounding nonsense? That is just what these carriers have ever 
done and will ever do so lmg as such legal nonentities as this law 
and commission are all that intervene between them and the people. 
This brings us to page 36 and the subject XI, "Reasonable 
Charges." As a sample of the literature of which this Report is 
made, its one-sided apologies and insinuated arguments, as matter 
vi extenuation or excuse for the abuses to which the public has so 



76 

long been subject, we quote verbatim pages 36-37 of it on this sub- 
ject. "Of the duties devolved upon the commission by the act to 
regulate commerce none is more perplexing and difficult than that of 
passing upon complaints made of rates being unreasonable. The 
question of reasonable rates involves so many considerations and 
is effected by so many circumstances and conditions, which at first 
blush seems foreign, that it is quite impossible to deal with it on 
purely mathematical principles, or any principles whatever without a 
consciousness, that no conclusion which may be reached can by 
demonstration be shown to be absolutely correct." 

Fellow-citizens, these are the cogitations of the quintette of 
"commissioners" who have taken the contract to legislate for you 
on the subject of "commerce, 1 ' with the advice and consent of the 
railroad corporations. They seem to seize the subject with a trem- 
bling hand. There are so "many circumstances and conditions," at 
"the first blush" and we expect every blush that attempts to do 
anything that interferes within corporate greed, the commission will 
finally fall in with their views. And no matter whether they do or 
not the Commission is powerless. 

The corporation can veto or change their legislation and law 
after it is made. 

Or, if they violate it the "Commission"' frankly informs you it 
cannot render even judgment for costs against the violations of their 
law. It would seem it would occur to the minds of the old legal 
grand dames to resign, but it does not. They take another pinch of 
corporation snuff and proceed as follows — -with a clear unmistaka- 
ble corporation ring. 

"The public interest is best served when the rates are so ap- 
portioned as to encourage the largest practical exchange of products 
between different sections of the country and with foreign countries ; 
and this can only be done by making value an important considera- 
tion and by placing upon the higher classes of freight some share 
of the burden that on a relatively equal apportionment of service 
alone would fall upon those of less value. 

With this method of arra- ging tariffs little fault is found and 
perhaps none at all by persons who consider the subject from the 
stand-point of public interest." That is a principle it would be very 
well for Congress to consider ; but for this commission to discuss 
such principles as governing it in its law-making is absurd. 

Now it simply is used by the corporations as an excuse to com- 
mit extortion upon the owners of valuable merchandise. When a 
jeweler or other owner of valuable merchandise is robbed he is in- 
formed it is to enable the corporations to ship corn, pork, beef and 
other less valuable articles at lower rates. They charge the higher 
rates and their "commission" defends it. Who has heard of the 
reduction on the less valuable? 

This is simply sneezing on corporation snuff. Page 37. "The 
want of steadiness in rates is commonly the fault of railroad mana- 
gers, and ma}- come from want of care in arranging their schedules, ' 



or from want of business foresight." Why not give the well-known 
reason for want of "steadiness in rates?" Everybody but these old 
owls knows it is the deliberate means used to rob the public. "But 
more often perhaps it grows out of disagreements between compe- 
ting companies, which when they become serious may result in wars 
of rates between them. Wars of rates when mutual injury is the 
chief purpose in view, as is sometimes the case, are not only mis- 
chievous in their effects upon the parties to them, and upon the 
business community, whose calculations and plans must for a time 
be disturbed, but the}- have a pre-eminently injurious effect upon 
the railroad service because of their effect upon the public mind." 
Yes, indeed, our commission are very solicitous as to "the effects" 
of "war of rates" on the the corporation "because of their effects 
upon the public mind." But they are in no wise exercised about 
the "war of rates," that has been waged on the American people 
for twenty years, only for some poor devil "whose calculations and 
plans must for a time be disturbed," by a rate perhaps half or one 
fourth less than he expected. Shame on the old owls, they uncon- 
sciously fall into railroads arguments at every page. It is all they 
know. 

Again read — we think a railroad attorney penned the following 
"impressions made on the public mind," by "wars of rates" 
haunt the old grand dames and corporations, 

"It may be truly said, also, that while railroad competition is 
to be protected, wars in railroad rates unrestrained by competitive 
principles are disturbers iu every direction; if the community reap 
a temporary advantage, it is one whose benefits are unequally dis- 
tributed and there are likely to be more than counter balanced by the 
incident unsettling of prices and interference with safe business 
calculations. The public authorities at the same time, find the task 
of regulation has been made more troublesome and difficult through 
the effect of a war of rates upon the public mind." Fellow-citi- 
zens do you pay this "commission" $37,500 per annum in salaries to 
act as a board of railroad attorneys to formulate and print at public 
expense arguments and suggestions to the corporations directing 
them how to reduce you to submission to the state of things to 
which you have been subject for fifteen years, and that it was sup- 
posed they were appointed to remedy? Here they discuss the ef- 
fects of the "war of rates," not on you the sufferers, for fifteen 
years but the corporations, whose very unjust gains have made them 
so proud and insolent they sometimes cease for thirty days this war 
on you to war with each other. And the thirty dav's war istheonly 
one in which the corporation "notables" have any interest. They 
say to them, you are unwise to do it ; you not only lose what you 
might earn in that time, but make our task "more troublesome" to 
reduce the public back to submission when your "war" is over by 
"the effect of war of rates on the public mind." That is to say 
your "war" teaches the "public mind" two things: 

(1.) That you have, as you and we know, great and unjust 



78 

gains at stake or you would not war. 

(2.) That you have such gains or you could not go to war as 
you do. By it you are simply exposing the imposition and fraud to 
"the public mind," that we are practicing on the public. Now if 
you want to establish our systems of imposition for time to come, 
you must not '"war" on each other. 

We will all have all we can do, commission and corporations 
combined to "regulate'' them down to submission. That is just the 
spirit and intent of it. I have no patience to follow it further. It 
is an insult to the American people. 

These are considerations that might be ver} T well addressed to 
Congress by corporation members and lobbies in "memorials" and 
arguments to induce it to still permit them to make "charges" and 
"rates" if it were in fact in good faith proceeding to "regulate com- 
merce" by enactments on that subject. 

And it will be met with these very arguments in the mouths of 
that class of gentlemen whenever it does proceed to act itself in- 
stead of delegate the power to act to a commission. To thinking 
persons who have left a doubt of the power and duty of Congress 
to legislate on this subject of charges and rates and make them a 
matter of law, just as it does that of "postage," "duties on im- 
ports" and of "internal revenue' and the "rates of interest," on 
the public debt, we suggest the following considerations. If Con- 
gress does not have this power to do it itself, how has it the power 
to create this commission and authorize it to do it by "joint action" 
with the railroad corporation "managers?" If it has not the power 
how can it cede or grant it to another? If it has the power it is a 
"vested" one and Congress has no right to sub-let or delegate it to 
any one. 

"All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Con- 
gress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and 
House of Representatives." Sec. 1, article 1, Con. U. S., then fol- 
lows qualifications of members, regulations for their election. 

The law-making power of the government is vested in this body. 
"The Congress shall have power : To regulate commerce," * * 
"To make all law r s wdiich be necessary and proper for carrying into 
execution the foregoing powers and all other powers vested by this 
constitution in the government of the United States or in any de- 
partment or officer thereof.'' Same. Where then is the authority 
for the "Congress" to delegate to this commission power to "legis- 
late" and make law on this subject of "commerce.' 

It is not debatable. The legislature of Missouri enacted a road 
law; then a section provided that the county court "might in its dis- 
cretion suspend the operation of the same for any specified length 
of time." 

Of this attempted delegation of legislative functions to the 
county court, the Supreme court of the State says: 

"The Constitution of the State after declaring that "the pow- 
ers of government shall be divided into three departments each of 



79 

which shall be confided to a separate magistracy," proceeds to vest 
the legislative powers of the government in these words: "the legis- 
lative powers shall be vested in a general assembly, which shall con- 
sist of a Senate and House of Representatives." 

The constitution of each house of the General Assembly is pro- 
vided for in the constitution, the qualifications of the members and 
the electors who choose them ; the mode in which bills shall be pass- 
ed and authenticated is also directed and the machinery is complete 
for the exercise of the legislative power conferred upon the General 
Assembly. The power thus conferred is the power to make laws ; 
anb the exercise of the power is entrusted to bodies of men who are 
supposed to be selected by the great body entitled to vote because 
of their prudence, wisdom and integrity. The laws to be passed 
from the "rule of civil conduct commanding what is right and pro- 
hibiting what is wrong," and that rule derives its force from the fact 
that it is the will of the whole people expressed by their authorized 
representatives in the form provided in the constitution and on sub- 
jects or questions on which the representatives have been entrusted 
to act. This power thus reaching every citizen in every relation and 
every interest is to be regarded as a sacred trust, which is to be ex- 
ercised by those to whom it has been committed and every citizen 
has a right to demand that the rule for his conduct shall be establish- 
ed by that body in which he with his other fellow-citizens have vest- 
ed the power.'' 1. State vs. Field, 17 Mo. Rept., pages 532 and 533. 
The authority is not cited, for the prestige of reputation, but be- 
cause on the principle and reason of the thing, not a word is left to 
be s:iid. And our search now is for principle and reason. 

To what one of the three co-ordinate departments of the United 
States government does this thing called the "commission" belong? 
To the legislative, the judicial, or the executive? Its report tells 
you it is to exercise, and does pretend to exercise, both, legislative, 
that is law making, and judicial, that is law interpreting, functions. 
It, needs no execution, no sheriff or constable, for, forsooth, it 
can, render no judgment in any cause before it for anything for a 
past injury, not even costs against the failing party. 

But who are the "electors" who "voted" and choose these five 
old corporation owls to legislate and make- laws for them, to regu- 
ulate the extortions of the corporations and "commerce?" The cit- 
izens never consented to it, and its attempt is a violation of their 
sacred rights. If it may thus be violated, all may, and protection 
from the constitution and laws will thus soon be gone. 

This brings us to page 41 and the title XII. "General Obser- 
vations," — of no interest to any one. 

Page 42 is the title XIII., "Amendments of The Law." This 
we would suppose would be a very important and emphatic subject, 
that would occupy many pages. But no — the corporations are per- 
fectly satisfied if they can hold matters at a statu quo under the 
old owls. And the quintette of old political owls are content 
to draw their stipend and hint only at an additional allow- 



80 

ance for clerk hire, in these words: "The commission ought also to 
have authority and the means to bring about something like uni- 
formity, in the method of publishing rates, which is now in great 
confusion, and to carefully examine, collect and supervise the sched- 
ules, contracts, etc., required by the law to be filed, as well as prop- 
erly to handle the mass of statistical information called for by the 
twentieth section. For all these purposes as well as for others im- 
perfectly provided for, a considerable addition to the force employed 
with the commission will be indispensable." And that will he 
enough ; the U. S. Senate will second the motion of the railroad lob- 
by and a goodly slice of the troublesome "surplus" will be duly ap- 
propriated thus, at the dictates of incorporate greed and will troub- 
le the people no more. Less than a half a page is devoted to the 
subject of "Amendments." They do desire the Congress "to indi- 
cate in plain terms" whether the express companies are included in 
the act. 

It makes no difference whether they are or not to the people. 
It does not once occur to them to "indicate" they would like to be 
relieved from the onerous duty of legislating on the subject of "rea- 
sonable and just charges," No, this quintette of legal political 
owls feel in every way quite qualified and competent to attend to 
this branch of the service. Or indeed, all they have to do is to re- 
cord" and sanction the "rates" and "charges'' furnished them by 
the corporations. And it does not once occur to this corporation 
quintette to suggest that it might be well when this tribunal hide the 
legislative ears of the donkey under the judicial lion's skin, in court 
in a cause to give them authority to at least render judgment for 
costs against the corporations that made an unlawful charge. Shame 
on such toadyism. Language fails to express the contempt that 
ought to be felt by the American people for this convocation of cor- 
poration "notables." It is just the same trick and subterfuge re- 
sorted to by tyrants in all ages to deceive the plodding people. That 
is to seem to do something for their relief and yet do nothing. It is 
the same trick as that of Louis XVI of France in 1789, when the 
people clamored for relief against the beastly tyranny of the Bour- 
bons backed by the drones in the hive of society, the priesthood of 
the church and the nobility of the State. Yes, said Louis "we will 
grant you relief of our own choosing." We will summon the "No- 
tables" of the clergy and the nobility who with us have robbed you 
the "third estate" the people for three centuries. That will be a 
good commission to parley with me over your grievances. The peo- 
ple answered; these same "Notables" as the First and Second Es- 
tates and you make common cause against us. We demand that you 
summon and convene "the States General." But Louis summoned 
the Notables and they wrangled over the subject whether they 
would share a slight part of the burdens of the people, that were 
crushing them in the earth, and did nothing. 

Finally he was compelled to summon the States General the rep- 
resentatives of "the third estate." And then the States General the 



81— 

people, by their duly elected representatives in their turn, summon- 
ed Louis and his priestly and noble robbers to meet in the same hall, 
presided over by him, to deliberate together upon the subject of the 
people's cause, grievances and constitutional liberty. But Louis 
and the classes who demanded "special privileges" demanded the 
right to own three-fifths of all the lands and three-fourths of all the 
wealth of France and to be exempt from all the burdens of taxa- 
tion, said no. We will sit by ourselves in parley, and each order 
shall have a vote so we can vote you down. We will be your "com- 
mission" to fix reasonable and just charges of taxation and bur- 
dens for you. Our interests and ancient "prerogatives" are too old 
and too great, have been too long vested rights and involve too many 
interests of church and state, to be entrammeled by the captious and 
silly demands of the rabbel and common people of the third estate, 
in what you call constitutional safeguards, for civil and religious lib- 
ert}\ "Disperse you rebels!" go home and obey your master. 

We are your "commission ;" it is time enough for you to know 
the law, when we make and proceed to administer it. But the 
States General, like the "minute men and militia" at Lexington and 
Concord in 1776 failed to "disperse." They "dispersed" Louis and 
his traitorous tyrannical horde. So with the Charles I and II of 
England. The issue between them and the people was they would 
not submit their "prerogatives" to the regulations of constitutional 
limitations. They said we are too big, too much above the range of 
matters of common interest and human welfare to submit to this. 

The people said, we do not think so; you shall thus submit or do 
worse, and all of them lost their thrones, and two of them their 
heads in the contest. Imperious human lust of power and greed of 
gain are the same in all ages, climes and conditions. And to-day, 
right here, under the stars and stripes in this "land of the free and 
the home cf the brave," the very same, insolent, tyrannical, and if 
submitted to much longer as destructive claims to absolute power 
and prerogative, are insisted upon and are enjoyed by a class as 
ever were demanded and insisted upon by Louis XVI and Charles I. 
The very essence of tyranny and absolutism is, .its refusal to come 
under, or if under to be governed by constitutional and legal limita- 
tions. That is the issue to-day between the Czar of Russia and his 
people, and that is the issue to-day between the American people 
and the money power, bank and railroad corporations. The argu- 
ment all the time put forward, to intimidate and overawe the people 
and the few tribunes who stand up for their cause, is, their railroad 
and other interests are so great, so powerful, so wonderful, so mul- 
tiform, and involve so many interests, it is an exception to all gen- 
eral constitutional and legal limitations ; it would embarrass it to 
thus submit. 

It will be remembered, we pointed that out, and it is the very 
first impression attempted to be made by the corporation "Notables" 
of the commission. And to more deeply impress this on those who 
read and to stagger the champion of the people's cause, they re- 



82 

sort to downright falsehood and try to make it appear that the rail- 
road mileage of the United States has cost $54,301 per mile. 

That it is so wonderful and complex and so peculiar in its rela- 
tions and interests, it cannot be subject to common vulgar law-mak- 
ing by Congress to say what is "a reasonable and just charge" for 
its services, like an ordinary or extraordinary or any and every oth- 
er interest. But it is enough for it to declare that "all unreasona- 
ble and unjust charges are hereby declared unlawful and are pro- 
hibited ;" that is enough. Then summon five old owls with their 
backs piously turned to the light of constitutional civil liberty and 
their gold-rimmed spectacle* peering with longing eye into the "re- 
ceding" shades of "prerogative;" call them by that easy going 
name of a "commission ;" and leave it to the First and Second Es- 
tate to say what is "a reasonable and just charge ; provided always, 
that these "Notables" shall have the right to smell round and rub 
against and parley with the corporations. And provided always 
moreover, that when the railroad corporations change the law of 
"carriers" and the "rate" of "charges" they shall immediately, if not 
sooner, file a copy of the "change" with the "Notables." If the 
present United States Senate and railroad lobby had been on hands 
to mediate between the colonist and George III in 1770 there would 
have been "Revolution." They would have compromised by asking 
the English parliament to pass an act declaring that "every unjust 
and unreasonable charge (or rate of tax on the colonies) is prohibit- 
ed and declared unlawful." Then they would have provided for the 
appointment of "a joint commission" of members of the English 
parliament to represent the English government and resident En- 
glish governors to represent the colonists, and then they would have 
settled all questions of the "stamp act*' and "taxation" to the satis- 
faction of — of well yes — of George III. And Patrick Henry, Sam- 
uel Adams or Thomas Payne would have been as small men in that 
"commission" as any true "tribune" of the people's cause would be 
in our "commission" of the corporation Notables. 

Louis XVI would have submitted all his claims and "preroga- 
tives" to a "commission" of "Notables" with no more power than 
our "commission of railroad Notables. 

That is the power to ' let him make the law ; let him say what 
was "a reasonable or just charge" or words that would be as gener- 
al grant of power to him as this is to the corporations ; and undoubt- 
edly he would have agreed to inform them promptly and file a copy 
of it whenever he changed the rates and the law of taxation or any 
other subject. And Louis and the widow Capet would have died of 
old age, if not sooner of the gout. Yes, the present United States 
Senate would have been a glorious, big body of little men, in the 
fourteenth or fifteenth century. We speak of it as a body ; there 
are noble exceptions in it, but they are powerless. As at present 
constituted, it is the biggest body of the smallest men that ever dis- 
graced the Congressional halls of an enlightened civilized country, 
except always the English house of lords. Our Senate makes her- 



QQ 

O (J 

culean efforts to be as servile and venal ; but not as yet being he- 
reditary it fails in some respects. But it has fairly earned and ought 
to be nominated, "The Rump Corporation and Millionaires Par- 
liament of the United States." It is time the people inquire "on 
what meat doth this our Cresar feed that he hath grown so great." 
It is time to beware of a man, a class or an interest when he or it 
begins to demand legal and constitutional exceptions in his or its 
favor. The people must reduce the corporations to legal and constitu- 
tional limitations like every other interest or they will reduce them 
to greater extremities, than they ever yet have known. It is the na- 
ture of greed of gain and power, once over the line of constitu- 
tional limitations, to go on and on from bad to worse — like the grave 
it is never appeased, and over the constitutional limit, there is no 
bounds to it only that of expediency. Just as here — under the pro- 
visions of this act, according to the report of the men whose duty it 
is to enforce it ; it is a law unto itself. They have power to let it 
fix the "reasonable and just charge;" then they have "power" to 
smell and tease round among corporation officials, the delinquents, 
the law breakers themselves, for "information" concerning viola- 
tions of the law. And then when they do find there has been viola- 
tion and have a "cause" they have no power to render a judgment 
even for costs. And the corporations have power to change the 
rates and law. And this costs the people $100,000 per annum and 
is not sufficient. The people asked "a fish" and the corporations 
and U. S. Senate gave them a "serpent." 

It is one thing to show the utter inefficiency of this or any oth- 
er measure ; another to suggest something better. It is on its face 
a compromise between the patriots, who stood up for the peoples' 
cause onone side and the minions of incorporate greed on the oth- 
er. The patriots undoubtedly accepted it because then it was that 
or nothing; they said it will an entering wedge, and it will. Pitiful 
as it is, it concedes the right and power of Congress to regulate the 
means of accomplishing this branch of the public service. In suc- 
ceeding ones, the only debatable issue will be the means used to ac- 
complish the end ; whether it actually will regulate it, or relegate the 
matter back to the corporations, and a nameless powerless legal and 
political nonentity, like the commission. 

Public necessity will soon put the boot of emphatic ouster and 
contempt behind our ''rump corporation and millionaire parlia- 
ment,' 1 as at present constituted. When once a Congress that has 
a will to regulate this branch of commerce takes the subject in hand 
it will find a way. But a way may not be sufficient; we must have 
the right, the just way. It must be done on just principles, for no 
other way of regulating such great human interests and affairs will 
stand the wear and tear of years. And, like the fathers framing 
the constitution, we now, in this matter, are doing a work for com- 
ing generations in the womb of the centuries ; we must not, we can 
not afford, to have "tinkering." 

The "Act" we have just reviewed sustains the same relation to 



84 

this agitation the Missouri Compromise Line did to the chattel slav- 
ery agitation. In each instance it is like treating a cancer with 
feathers and cream. All principles involved were and are violated 
in both. Both these spectres of human cupidity that have come to 
haunt and threaten our political peace and safety, stalked in upon 
us at points unguarded in the constitution ; in their jealousy of en- 
croachments from the government side of the compact, the fathers 
left the avenue of approach to both of these open wide. What is 
done must be on principles of justice, for all built on any other 
foundation, is like the house "built on the sand." When the storms 
of conflicting human interests "beat upon it" it will fall. If it does 
seem like a great undertaking we must clear away the rubbish 
heaped about the subject, by short-sighted greed, until we find the 
solid foundation of principle, there lay stones of truth and cement 
as we go with justice. Although Congress has power to regulate 
commerce, it has no power or right to do injustice to either society 
or the corporations in doing it. 

We think these propitious and self-evident: (1.) A public 
service is one in which all have a common interest and must be con- 
troled and performed by government and from which in the very na- 
ture of things all expectation and hope of private advantage and gain 
must be excluded. (2.) Transportation is one branch of com- 
merce and a department of the public service. It is admitted by 
the corporations to be such, when they ask the government to con- 
demn private property for rights of way, as for a public use. (3.) 
In that branch of the public service, as in all others, all avenue to 
hope of private gain and advantage must be closed. On this point 
there must be no half way ground for compromise, on greed's side 
of the dead line of justice, it is no compromise at all ; it is simply 
giving away the constitutional rights of the citizen for nothing in re- 
turn. We are willing to concede all the merit due to our railroad 
and' telegraph service ; we know and we are proud of their achieve- 
ments and enterprise. They have been and now are, in spite of their 
abuses, great aids in the hands of men to go forth into the world 
and "subdue it." 

Private American enterprise has carried the shrieking whistle 
up and down our rivers, over our prairies, over and through our 
mountains to where "the rank thistle nodded in the wind and the 
wild fox dug his hole unscared." Pulsed civilization out into the 
wilds of the West, with its hot throbs of life and burning eye, wak- 
ing the frontiersman up to shed his coon skin cap and fall in the 
ways of civilized life, perhaps a century sooner than he might oth- 
erwise have done. Under the electrifying rail, "The Great Ameri- 
can Desert of the Atlas," of school-boy days, of men yet in middle 
life, has grown into States and territories, cities and hives of indus- 
try, a nation in itself. Nor do we see so much to condemn, that belts 
of territory were voted to them of the public domain, to assist in 
these enterprises. If we mistake not it is all there yet ; they did 
not carry any of it away ; now so regulate the matter it can be ap- 



85 

propriated for homes. True, private persons have made in that line 
of enterprise, immense fortunes ; it was the fault of society, if any, 
to leave the door open. In this matter society has sat like a stupid 
dolt, with open mouth and only made ejaculations of surprise, at 
their feats of enterprise. It made no effort to regulate their en- 
deavor in that direction, or to assert its rights. And the people 
hailed them as benefactors come to relieve them from backwoods and 
inland isolation, solitude and ennui; to start society and all enter- 
prise forward at a new rate of speed ; they said name your price ; we 
will build your road, give it to you, and pay you for the privilege of 
riding on it. 

Society treated itself in this matter, as a minor or imbecile "in- 
capable of attending to its affairs." The corporations took it at its 
word. But now society begins to think and feel, it is about time it 
at least make an attempt to attend to its own business. But the 
guardians and "trustees" refuse to resign or answer concerning their 
trust. But society and its government must teach them the whole 
is greater than any of its parts ; that it still has power to regulate 
and it will do it. The question is, what is justice between man and 
man in the situation ? That is all society can ask and they must 
cede no less ; all action taken must be on that line, or it will soon 
end in the mist and smoke of confusion. Let us briefly review the 
situation. Forty years ago the owners of this class of property said 
to society, if you will grant us rights of way through private lands, 
we will build railroads and telegraph for public use and benefit. 

And the legislatures read the constitution on the subject "That 
private property shall not be taken for public use, without just com- 
pensation ;" and took the view the constitution was made for man, 
and enacted laws to condemn private property for such use, upon 
payment of "'just compensation." The corporations on this basis 
entered ; and while they have been condemning and taking private 
property for compensation, fixed by appraisers or a jury, they and 
their attorneys dilate with great profusion on the fact they were 
'•"Quasi" that is almost "public corporations ;" that they were going 
to be public servants and benefactors, the "trustees of a public 
trust," in this behalf. At that period of the proceedings all the em- 
phasis and stress was laid on the Quasi Public features of the cor- 
porations. But soon as they were in, the ties and rails down, then 
the stress and emphasis passed to the Quasi almost private features 
of them. Then the corporation judges and attorneys dilated the 
other side of their mouths and expatiated with wonderful legal pro- 
fundity, on the sacred protection of the constitution of "vested pri- 
vate rights." They still attempt to convince society, it is a minor, 
an imbecile "incapable of attending to its own affairs." And it as 
yet, sits like an open mouthed idiot, in a station house, Overawed by 
the rantings of a police pettifogger in a "quasi" stupified condition. 
Let society rouse itself to a sense of its rights and duties in the 
premises. Let it say to these corporations to enable you acquire 



86 

your rights of way, 3<ou asserted you were going to be servants of 
the public and "trustees of a public trust." 

But now you have denied and betrayed it. And now an exi- 
gency has arisen that demands of us that all avenue to private or 
incorporate gains in these matters be closed. In the inception of 
your enterprise, society exercised its right of eminent domain in 
your behalf. Now we have reached a point in the development of 
society and of the importance of this branch of the public service, 
when it has become necessary to again recur to the exercise of that 
retained right of government ; to be used to accomplish the end of 
"the greatest good to the greatest number." Public necessity im- 
pels it ; it is one has grown upon us like the question of Land and 
Land Limitation, the regulation and abolishment of the liquor traffic 
and others. Indeed we do not see that society, need take its hat 
off or bow very low, or take much time to make a speech to show 
this class of faith breakers and trust betrayers, that they in com- 
mon with common mortals and the rest of mankind, must obey the 
behests of the law of necessity that attempts "the greatest good to 
the greatest number;" they must submit just as the poor man did 
when they came to his ancestral home, and condemned a way 
through his orchard, garden and the ancestral burying ground. 
There will not be xery much actual distress among the millionaires 
when it is done. And pass a law to value, condemn and take their 
property for a public use ; the value to be fixed at the time it is 
done. 

That is absolute justice ; that is doing to them as they have 
done to you ; yes, and as we would that they should do to us. For 
society and its interests are greater than that of any class or part. 
Value their property by actual inspection, inventory and apprais- 
ment ; not their bonds, mortgages and "watered stock" secured 
on such property, but just as they valued the poor man's land when 
they took it. It would not avail him and a mortgagee to have got- 
ten up a special town plat of his laud, or bogus mortgage on it for 
the occasion of the condemnation ; so now, no such fraud shall avail 
that class of property holders. When they actually did pay money 
for rights of way, return it to them ; that is sufficient, for they never 
had anything but the easement or right to use it for that purpose. 
The use of the land will repay the use of the money ; and when 
rights of way have been given to them, they are not entitled to a 
cent, and to do them justice, all aid in building them, ought in fact 
to be deducted from the valuations fixed. For then they will have 
had the use of the vast sums given them by private donations public 
and municipal aid. But ascertain what is right ; then the govern- 
ment society is able to own, maintain and operate it, if the corpora- 
tions are ; for the whole is greater than any of its parrs. 

As it is, the people have and will continue to pay for and return 
to them, every dollar actually invested in that species of property 
every fifteen years and still never own it. They are now annually 
taxed $5.17 per capita to support this branch of the public service 



87 

to pay the two items of interest on the "funded debt" and "divi- 
dends on stock." That does not include the millions paid in gilt 
edge salaries of fine haired officers and attorneys and money "put 
where it will do the most good" "in doubtful districts," and a hun- 
dred others of which society can get no account. Value their prop- 
erty on this basis of justice and the seven and a quarter billions 
claimed in the Report of the Commission will dwindle. 

If this class of property and capital has so much potential actual 
value we would suggest that the volume of about 700 millions of dollars 
national bank and gold and silver certificates currency be retired and 
about 1,000 millions of the paper currency or be bottomed on this 
species of property as a basis to be secured by a non-taxable and 
non-interest bearing bond if thought best. And if interest or in- 
come at any rate was paid on any bonds to pay for such property, it 
would be on an actual value, and regulated by law, instead of on 
" watered stock" and regulated only by incorporate greed as now. 

Then erect the Department of Transportation as another dis- 
tinct branch of the public service ; make the test of rates and charg- 
es to depend upon the amount necessary to make that department 
like the post-office self-sustaining. And until paid for to yield a sink- 
ing fund. And the operations of this department would not be as 
intricate, nor half the minute and complex transactions involved 
there are to-day in the post-office department. And it is well known 
to be the best managed and most economically administered depart- 
ment of business, public or private in the United States. Its very 
complexity of minute transactions compels the system of almost 
daily accounting of those engaged in its transactions and the scores 
settled and balanced ; and the standing depends on accuracy in dai- 
ly duty, and is handed to each employe monthly, like a school boy. 
Self-preservation is the first law of nature, in business, as well as 
everywhere else. Introduce a system of daily accounting and set- 
tlement and that principle and practice is expert and policeman 
combined to find and publish frauds : it thus becomes a matter of 
necessity and is the only safe and true principle of public or private 
business. 

An exigency that calls for prompt and thorough action has aris- 
en. Half way measures will not suffice. The argument usually 
made that such ownership and control tends to paternity and cen- 
tralization of undue power in government, is only corporation dust 
thrown to blind the eyes of the people. 

To advance that view is simply to argue that the "Congress" 
ought not "have power to regulate commerce." That is the argu- 
ment if there is any in it. And the effect of it is that the corpora- 
tions must retain the power to regulate themselves in this regard. 
For, if they do retain ownership, for what is it done, only that they 
may retain control of this species of property and the broad avenue to 
private undue gain from that control in this branch of the public 
service ? 

The great influence and power of that branch of the public ser- 



88 

vice, will continue right here among us, whether its acts and con- 
duct be regulated by the sworn and responsible departments and 
officers of government, or by the irresponsible minions of incorpo- 
rate greed. To the people it presents only a choice as to which class 
of regulation they will subject this branch of public service. 

Yes, more than that: whether they will subject it to legal con- 
stitutional limitations and control, or it retain them as they now 
are under its dictates and control. As it now is, it is actually to a 
great extent "owned'' and controlled by foreign alien capital that 
owes us neither allegiance or good will. Such foreign capital and 
inference not only has gone into and appropriated vast areas of our 
public domain, the peoples' inheritance, but has clutched and to- 
day actually "owns" vast interests in the "watered stocks" and 
capital vested in this class of property, by means of which the trans- 
portation of our country is effected ; and thus "eats its bread in the 
sweat of the face" of American freemen ; thus has an actual direct 
control over their public affairs and welfare in this one of the most 
important branches of their public service. 



CHAPTER XII. 



MONEY ITS NATURE, USE AND ABUSE. 

We come now to consider the second great means used by men 
in a state of society, in the exchange of the products of their minds 
and hands. It is one branch of the great subject of commerce ; 
there can be no civilization without commerce ; there can be no 
commerce worthy of the name without transportation and money. 
Transportation carries the commodity from the producers to the 
consumer's market. But in the market the two parties are still sep- 
arate ; although barter is the real effect of the exchanges made, it 
cannot be made in person ; it is made through the agency of the 
dealers. In the transaction of a barter, the first consideration is 
the relative value of the articles exchanged. To determine this 
there must be some unit of value. To ascertain what this unit of 
value is, let us suppose a case of actual barter. A proposes to ex- 
change a pair of shoes he has made with B for a coat he has made. 
B says and shows he was employed ten days in the labor of prepar- 
ing the material and making the coat. 

A cannot show that he was employed more than five days in 
preparing the material and making the shoes. B will therefore say 
to A you ought to give me two pairs of shoes for the coat. The 
material in one instance is the hide, in the other the wool of animals. 

It is valued in the first instance by the actual human labor it 



89 

costs to gain or produce it. So we see at a glance the value is esti- 
mated according to the human labor and time necessary to procure 
of produce the article. And the unit of human toil, of labor, of 
time, in our universe is the day. Time is an element of every thing 
in this world good or great ; and the day is the sand, the unit of 
time of human life and endeavor. And we reach the simple, but 
fundamental truth, in political economy, that the day's labor of an 
ordinary man. is the unit of value. In a savage state, little atten- 
tion is paid to it, for then the things bartered, come to the owner 
more as a matter of chance than from actual daily toil. 

But as a community passes from the savage to a civilized state and 
their possessions become the fruit of their daily toil, then the}' re- 
cur to it as the unit of value. This original unit of value is one 
thing; the price that may be the result of the fluctuations of the 
market, influenced by considerations of a local nature, such as sup- 
ply or demand is quite another. Time is the element that gives the 
higher price for professional, scientific and artistic labor. In each 
of these fields of human endeavor the laborer is required to spend 
years of toil, at expense, to fit him for the services that now com- 
mand the higher price ; so with skilled labor. The days of his re- 
munerative toil, have been shortened by the years of study or ap- 
prenticeship and so to speak, he receives the price of two or three 
day's labor in one. Along with this also sometimes comes in the 
consideration of the unhealthfulness and danger of the employment 
that necessarily shorten the time of toil. And genuine special tal 
ent commands a higher price, because of its scarcity, just as do 
pearls, gold and diamonds. This unit is abstract, in a sense and 
real in another. It is real in its actual cost to the person who per- 
forms the clay's labor; it is abstract, an idea only, in the market; it 
cannot be weighed, handled or tested only as it appears in the ob- 
ject produced. But in the market it is so constantly recurring, is so 
often used, in comparing things and talked of so much, it actually 
becomes a thing, in the minds of men and they actually do with this 
idea of value as they with every other in such a case; they material- 
ize and personify it. On the same principle they reach the weights 
and measures, the pint, the quart, gallon, bushel, yard stick and 
pound. And this materialization of the value is called money; just 
as the others are materialization of the ideas of quantity. 

The idea exists prior to the personification; the thing signified 
prior to the signification. The necessity for money is an out- 
growth of civilized society. The dealer becomes the agent of the 
parties in society and they require him to make their exchanges as 
to value, in money they have agreed shall represent a day's labor, 
as the unit. The money of a country is an exponent of its status 
upon the standard of civilization, whether barbarian, semi-civilized 
or civilized. The American Indian had his wampum, strings of 
shells, skins and bear's claws. The African his gold-dust and ivor} r ; 
the Japanese and Chinese their rude copper and other metal pieces ; 
the Americans and Europeans their finely executed and artistically 



90 

stamped coin and currency. In a savage and atomized state of so- 
ciety, men always use some tangible "thing of intrinsic value, at 
least to their minds. It must be something they can seize as they 
do their bows and poisoned arrows and war clubs. They cannot 
comprehend and indeed their atomized and isolated States nega- 
tives the idea of the faith in men and their organization in society 
and the credit and confidence the}' repose in each other that indica- 
ted in writing, printing and insignia upon a fragile piece of paper, 
gives it currency and causes it to pass for value. They are below 
that conception of human character. 

They cannot conceive the fact a man or a community will do 
aught they have agreed or promised to do only as they are compell- 
ed to do it by force. Hence such people in war never practice the 
military parole of honor, or exchange of prisoners; they must have 
the prisoner, his life or a hostage. It is only when men have made 
some advancement in civilization they commence to use paper mon- 
ey as currency; that is a money, that has no intrinsic value. When 
done it is a certificate that men have made some considerable ad- 
vancement and have reached as a society or community the stand- 
ard of moral and intellectual excellence that they have' and do exer- 
cise faith in man, in his integrity, in the aggregate, in society and in 
the law of contracts, as enforced by the courts 

And their mutual necessities and convenience lead them to give 
tc/each other, personified in their government, the mutual faith and 
credit that is the basis of a paper currency. They take the parole 
of honor; they do not demand "hard money" or one that has an 
intrinsic value, or a hostage. 

Thus we see that "hard money." or a money of an intrinsic 
value, is only a relic of barbarism,— an affliction that ignorant, half 
savage men. by reason of their little, mean, mutual mistrust, impose 
on themselves. And we see the subject of money is one that in- 
volves the element of the consent of the people as a whole ; that is 
their sovereignty and government. The idea of value is material- 
ized, so it may be counted and handled as money. That is. for a 
matter of convenience, the value represented by a days' labor of an 
ordinary man shall be valued at one dollar, or such sum as it is 
worth, by common consent. And that value should be materialized 
in such or such a piece of metal or paper, and stamped with the in- 
scriptions and devices designated by law. And in civilized society 
legal tender money is a creature of law. either paper or metalic. 
For gold or silver bullion is no more legal tender for debt than 
brick or nnstamped white paper. Hence, in all civilized countries 
the money making and regulating power is one. ceded by the people 
to their government, and must be exercised by it. Our constitu- 
tion vests this power in the Congress, the legislative department of 
the government, in these words: 

"The Congress shall have power * * to coin money, regu- 
late the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of 
weights and measures." * * "To regulate commerce with the 



91 

foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian 
tribes." * * "To make all laws which shall be necessary and 
proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all 
other powers vested by this constitution in the government of the 
the United States, or in any department or office thereof." — Sec. 8, 
Art. I.. Constitution U. S. 

Let us consider these powers in the order named. 

1. '"The Congress shall have power." That is, these powers 
named are vested in it ; it cannot cede or delegate these powers, that 
is, the power of law making, to any department or officer of govern- 
ment, much less to a private, natural or artilicial'person. It means 
the Congress shall make all laws to regulate and enforce these "pow- 
ers." and shall not delegate it to any one. 

2. "To coin money." That is, to pass laws to provide for 
mints and mintage of money, of what material it shall be made ; if of 
meals, its weight, alloy, stamp, inscriptions and denominations; if 
of paper, its size, inscriptions and devices, denominations and effect 
as a legal tender. This power it must exercise itself. 

3. "Regulate the value thereof." It is admitted by these 
words that to "coin" it, name i'.s denominations, as quarter, half. 
and dollars, does not include the whole duty of Congress in this be- 
half in the minds of the framers of the Constitution. In a sense 
Congress regulates the value of money when it enacts a law declar- 
ing the fractional currency shall consist of copper one cent pieces, 
nickel five, and silver ten, twenty-five and fifty cent pieces. And 
that the legal tender, national bank, and gold or silver certificates 
shall be of such or such denominations. But that is not half the 
duty of Congress in this behalf. The power "to coin money" means 
and includes the powers to issue or emit and put and keep it in cir- 
culation. This duty is recognized and enforced by Congress in 
making it a crime to clip, punch or mutilate the coins it stamps, emits 
and thus puts in circulation ; to the same effect and for the same 
purpose are the penalties of the law inflicted for counterfeiting the 
current coin and currency of the United States. 

In actual practical use among the people money has two values; 
first its denomination fixed by law, when it is coined; second its 
buying power determined by the number of legal tender dollars in 
actual circulation for use in payment of debts, its "volume." To 
the people, the latter value, of numey, is much the more important, 
for it is the one that is manipulated by those able to handle, and 
••corner" the money market, and thus actually make a cheap or a 
dear dollar, as the}' choose. For the government "to coin money 1 ' 
and then abandon all control of it. is to practically abdicate its au- 
thority over the whole subject. It is like a mother who gives birth 
to. and then abandons her child, to live or die, to perish as an in- 
fant or struggle to man's estate. 

The power "to coin" includes and means the power to issue 
and keep it in circulation. 

"Nor can it be questioned that when investing the nature and 



92 

extent of the power conferred by the constitution upon Congress, it 
is indispensable to keep in view the objects for which those powers 
were granted. If the general purpose of the instrument is ascertain- 
ed, the language of its provisions must be construed with reference 
to that purpose and so as to subserve it." Knox vs Lee et al, 12 
Wallace U. S. Kept. The Great Legal Tender Decision. The pur- 
pose of the power to coin money vested in Congress was to supply 
the people with a legal tender money, uniform in value, sufficient 
in volume to meet the growing demands of a great, free enterpris- 
ing and commercial people. And for this purpose, "Whatever pow- 
er there is over the currency is vested in Congress. If the power to 
declare what is money is not in Congress it is annihilated."- (Same 
authority.) 

The second value of money has to be "regulated'' after it is 
coined and go on its mission of debt paying from the mints. 

Akin to this duty of Congress and named in the same connec- 
tion is the one to "regulate the value of foreign coin ;" thus demon- 
strating that it was in the minds of the framers of the constitution 
that "to coin money - ' and set it atloat outside the doors of the mint 
did not do the full duty of Congress in that behalf, eitheras to its 
own coinage or foreign ; that it wns to follow it out on its mission 
and "regulate the value" of both while outside the doors of the 
mint. For common sense shows and the person of ordinary under- 
standing can see that 600 millions of coined money heaped in the 
vaults of the TJ. S. Treasury or of the bank for a scries of years, so 
far as its actual use to the people as money is concerned, might as 
well have never been coined or have been in the heart of the earth 
It is the available volume of money that actually circulates among 
the people, as money, for debt paying purposes, that determines the 
second or buying power and value of the dollar. This can be dem- 
onstrated by precept from the highest authority and by example. 
The logic of the situation is very simple and is this. To make mon- 
ey scarce, makes money dear. To make money dear is only anoth- 
er name for making wages and property cheap. There is always a 
direct ratio, between the buying value or power of the dollars and 
the volume of the legal tender, dollars doing actual duty among the 
people as such. If the "volume," the number, is small, the buying 
power of the dollar is great; or vice versa, as the one increases or 
diminishes so does the other, in an increased ratio. 

An example. In this country in 1865 there was an actual vol- 
ume of currency, that served the people, as money, of about forty 
eight dollars per capita. Day laborers were in demand and could 
command from one to two and a half dollars per day, and so con- 
tinued until the contraction of the currency commenced about 1868. 
All kinds of employment flourished ; private debts were paid with 
an alacrity never known' before in the history of the country and 
three mortgages were canceled, as shown by the record, to one made 
and recorded. But in 1868 a class of men who "eat their bread in 
the sweat" of other men's faces, commenced to clamor for the En- 



93- 

glish, European, sersdom polic}- of "contraction and resumption." 
And our Congress and Executive Departments of our government, 
were converted or bribed to champion the European, English and 
medieval, monarchial systems of finance and overturn that of a 
modern and republican one. The system of "contraction to effect 
resumption," was inaugurated and pursued, with crushing effect 
upon the commerce and industries of the people; with such terrible 
and unprecedented effect, that instead of a volume of circulating 
medium of money of about forty-eight dollars as in I860, it was 
about thirteen dollars per capita in 1873. 

Then came the "crash," "Black Friday" "the panic," almost a 
total suspension of payment of private indebtedness and private en- 
terprise, carrying ruin, disaster, bankruptcy, in its train, strewing 
the years 1873-4-5-6 and 7, with the ruins of private fortunes and 
business. 

In 1877 instead of common laborers commanding one to two 
and a half dollars per day wages, three millions were out of all em- 
ployment, one million driven out of house and home as "tramps." 
And for the first time in the history of the Republic came thattalis- 
manic name, coined in and imported from the tyrant-cursed and no- 
bleman and priest-ridden, bloody ground of Europe to be engrafted 
upon and into our political and financial literature along with the 
kindred family of names, "Resumption," "Honest Money," "Hard 
Money" and the "Boom." And from 1873 to 1878, lands that had 
been valued at 30 to 50 dollars per acre and mortgaged for 10 to 20 
per acre would neither produce enough at the prices of products to 
pay the interest nor sell for enough to pay the debt. 

The enginry of the bankrupt courts was called into full play 
and we had 3,000 bankruptcies in 1874 against 600 in 1865, that is 
five to one, and suicides increased in about the same ratio. 

In the political campaign of 1880, the Republican party pub- 
lished the records of the county in Indiana in which Wm. H. En- 
glish, a national banker, lived, then on the democratic ticket for 
vice-president of the U. S., showing that this "friend of the people," 
in the years 1874-75, had bought at foreclosure and tax sales nearly 
800 different pieces of landed property at a sacrifice of about $200,- 
000 below the assessed value, that being about one-half the real 
value of them. 

In our opinion this was only publishing the private shame of 
Wm. H. English and the public shame of the Republican party. 
For, to admit it all, he had only taken advantage of the conditions 
and class legislation enacted, aided and abetted by it. 

Discussing this subject on the floor of the House Mr. Garfield 
said "whoever controls the volume of the currency, is absolute mas- 
ter of the commerce and industries of the country." 

The idea cannot be more forcibly expressed. The monetary 
commission appointed by Congress in 1873 composed of three Con- 
gressmen and three Senators in their printed Report, Vol. 1, page 
10, say: "That an increasing value of money and falling wages 



94 

and prices have been and are more fruitful of human misery than 
war, pestilence or famine." 

The contraction of the currency from a volume of forty-eight 
dollars per capita in 18G5, to thirteen in 1873, multiplied the com- 
mercial value, the buying power of the dollar by three. 

It multiplied the value of the property of those whose means 
was in money or obligations payable in money by three and divided 
the value of all other property, by the same factor. And all done 
in the short space of nine years and according to law. We look in 
vain in the bloody annals of the middle ages, in the freaks of the 
crowned block-heads, Louis XVI or Charles I, and their predeces- 
sors for measures that in effect were more arbitrary or that wrought 
more general havoc of the rights of private property. 

(4.) "And of' foreign coin." As already shown this proves 
that it was in the minds of the framers of the Constitution there 
were duties of Congress that extended to the currency at a date 
later than its coinage. This the Congress does not coin or emit. 
It refers to that, that naturally will find its way from one to another 
civilized country. 

It will be seen why this power of Congress over the subject of 
currency, is so often referred to when it is pointed out to the read- 
er, that "the Congress" has actually abdicated government on this 
branch of its duty as to about 340 millions of dollars of national 
bank, nearly one-half of the paper currency of the country. Not 
long since it will be remembered, the Mexican dollars was com- 
mon among us ; although it and the trade dollars each contained 
more silver than our standard dollar coined under the law of 1878, 
yet each of them only passed for eighty cents ; they were not honored 
with the fiat of the law of legal tender. 

(5.) "And fix the standard of weights and measures." Weights 
and measures are the materialization of the abstract idea of quanti- 
ty as money is that of value. And the regulation of both comes 
under and actually would belong to Congress, under its vested 
power "to regulate commerce," if not mentioned here. For Con- 
gress could not regulate commerce, without regulating these, 
the one the exponent of quantity, the other, that of value. The 
weight or measure is the label on the package or bottle indicat- 
ing how much; the money, the label on the same, or to be applied 
to it to indicate its value. 

It is manifest on a moment's reflection, that both subjects must 
be regulated by the same mind ; or there would be none at all, for if 
one mind regulates one and another the other, one or both will be 
constantly shifted to meet the ideas of values or machinations of 
greed and speculation of the other. What would it avail for Con- 
gress to "coin money" and declare its value and the States or some 
other power, then to lengthen or shorten the yard stick to make that 
value of money comport with its ideas of value? And Congress has no 
right to delegate its control over either of these subjects of commerce at 
any point in their use and application in the marts of trade. It 



95 

would be no more a perversion of the constitution to permit the na- 
tional bankers, to manipulate the yard stick, or the hundred weight, 
than it is to delegate to them the control of the volume of nearly 
one-half of the currency of the country and thus determine the 
commercial value, the buying power of the dollar. 

For as Garfield said, "Whosoever controls the volume of cur- 
rency is absolute master of the commerce and industries of the 
country." 

((5.) "To regulate commerce." That is to regulate and con- 
trol the three great means by which it is accomplished in a civilized 
country, namely, transportation, money, and weights and measures; 
that is to go back to the original transaction, the barter, in order of 
time, (1) the carrying from producer to a consumer, (2) mark 
the quantity, (3) the value. It takes the regulation of these three 
great kindred functions and their joint operation to consummate 
that great patent fact, civilized commerce. 

They are the fourth trinity of ideas and facts into which our sub- 
ject naturally divides itself. They are each public in their nature ; 
each involve the performance of functions of a nature and over 
which from the situation, the citizen can have no control; the per- 
formance of functions all power over which he ceded to and vested 
in the "Congress," with express understanding that it should exer- 
cise them as public functions, as branches of the public service, as 
arms of the State, in which all have a common interest ; and from 
which from the very nature of the case all avenue and hope of pri- 
vate gains, must be forever and uncompromisingly excluded. For, 
if any avenue to private gains by means of private control be left 
open then it is in so far a private function and one in which all cit- 
izens do not have a common interest ; and the letter and spirit of 
the constitution are negatived in so much. From these self-evident 
propositions, that challenge the assent of every well regulated un- 
prejudiced mind, we deduce the general truth; that it is not only 
the duty of the government to own and control the means by which 
that branch of commerce and the public services is performed called 
transportation, but also that of money; if the ownership of the 
standards of weights and measures, was in itself a fact, that figured 
(as it does not) in that function, it would be compelled to and own 
them too. The difference is that in that instance, the ownership of 
the implement by which the weight or measure is determined is a 
matter of no concern : in both i he others from the very nature of 
things it is the very sine quo non of government, or any other con- 
trol. The two facts of private ownership and that complete govern- 
ment control that is necessan T are as irreconcilable, asphj-sically and 
morally impossible as that two and two make five. And our expe- 
rience for twenty years as a nation emphasizes our deductions. Con- 
gress in a degree recognizes and performs this duty of regulating 
the value and superintending the currency on its mission in the 
hands of the people, by making laws to prohibit the clipping, muti- 
lating and counterfeiting it. 



96— 

But while it thus jealously guards against the rills that break 
over or through constitutional constraint it leaves the flood gate up, 
for the actual control of 850 millions of national bank cur- 
rency, by bank corporations; it strains at a (private) gnat and 
swallows a (corporation) camel, as usual. 

(7.) "To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper, 
for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and other powers 
vested by this constitution, in the government of the United States, 
or any department or officer thereof." That is to say that all laws 
that effect the monetary and commercial interests of the citizen of 
the Uuited States, must be made by Congress. It shall not shift or 
delegate duties that involve the interests of the citizen to any "other 
department or officer" of the government; much less to a railroad 
corporation and "commission" or a bank corporation, and the only 
question to be asked and answered to determine whether a subject 
involves the duties and powers vested by the citizens in "the Con- 
gress" is, does the exercise of the duty, power, or function, materi- 
ally effect the interests of the citizens. 

If so, it was "vested," in "Congress" as, and to be, a public 
one. The "control of the volume of currency" we have seen is 
one that is more powerful to affect and sacrifice property than the 
power to control or change the standard of weights and measures 
would be ; or to levy and collect taxes. These provisions are as 
plain as general language, such as must be used in a constitution 
can make them. But no constitution alone is any safe-guard against 
human cupidity ; "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." The 
assaults of greed upon the constitutional safe-guards, are as insidi- 
ous as the action of the water on the dykes of Holland. A mere 
seep that like a needle is scarcely perceptible, permitted to exist, 
grows, swells, until it bursts through, a torrent, and the low-lands 
for miles are flooded. If the American people will act like clowns 
and craven cowards to give them our noble constitution, is like 
dressing a hunch-back imbecile, in the regimentals of a hussar. It 
was framed by and for men "who know their rights and knowing 
dare maintain; who crush the tyrant while they rend the chain. 1 ' If 
they have no spirit, if they will submit like "dumb driven cattle" 
even if the chattel slave-holder did not "call the roll of his slaves 
under Bunker Hill Monument, the wage slave-holder and usuer will; 
yes, foreclose his mortgage on it and us. 

We now invite the careful attention of thoughtful readers, 
Avhile we demonstrate to their minds and convince them that our 
constitution in all these sacred provisions concerning tin 1 subject of 
money, is ruthlessly and contemptuously trampled under foot by ag- 
gregated capital and monied corporations. That this violation is 
deliberate, cold and calculating and involves a no less treasonable 
purpose, than to succeed on their part to the ownership and the con- 
trol of the volume of the paper currency of the republic. And thus 
to occupy the Stautus so powerfully described by Garfield as "abso- 
lute master of the commerce and industries of the country." We 



97 

are aware this is a grave charge ; it is an act of treason against the 
constitution and republic before which Arnold's pales into insignifi- 
cance ; and compared to which, "firing on Sumpter" was innocent. 
It is an act of treason, the enormity of which cannot be compre- 
hended, without hours of study. It is a crime against the country, 
race and age, the refined villainy of which can now scarely be con- 
ceived and for which the criminal calendar makes no provision. 
Such moral and political felons can only be tried at the bar of an 
intelligent public opinion. 

At that bar we propose to try that class by their acts on the 
law and the evidence. The readers shall be our jury. This pur- 
pose was conceived about the time of the close of the late civil war ; 
perhaps with some it was mature at the time of the first enactment 
of the National Banking Law. Let us take a general view of our 
finances at the close of the war. At that time there was 350 mil- 
lions of dollars each of legal tender and national bank currency ; 
this is not just correct, but near enough to serve our purpose now. 
The public debt of August, 1865, was stated in round numbers at 
$2,750,000,000. While there was considerable volume of other pa- 
per evidences of public indebtedness, that circulated for a time as 
money, yet none or all of it approximated in any degree the impor- 
tance of the legal tender currency. They only made any promise 
of competing for the field as money with the national bank curren- 
cy. 

We see at a glance if the national bank was to be the paper 
currency of the country, the legal tender must be driven out. 

(1). Is there a motive to induce such action on the part of the 
banks? Does capital invested in national bank stocks and U. S. 
bonds enjoy any especial privileges? We will suppose a national 
bank organized in 1865. It must be composed of at least five per- 
sons and they must own at least fifty thousand dollars of U. S. 
bonds to be deposited with the controller of the currency to secure 
the ninety (90) per cent, or forty-five thousand dollars of circula- 
tion ; that is national bank notes struck at government expense and 
delivered to them. The association continues to draw interest at an 
average rate of four per cent, per minum on the bonds and they 
are untaxed as good as two per cent more, six per cent income. 

On the $50,000 this is $3,000.00. We will suppose the aver- 
age of circulation is $30,000 per annum ; this they loan over the 
bank counter at a rate not to exceed the legal rate of the State or 
territory where situate ; the average will be about eight percent ; de- 
duct one per cent paid on circulation and we have seven as the rate 
and $30,000 as the basis and $2,100.00 the income from this source, 
the total $5,100.00 ; or over ten per cent per annum income, on ev- 
ery cent invested. To say nothing of the other sources of income 
and advantages that naturally attend the business; such as "depos- 
its" often yielding greater profits than its own capital. But we want 
to carry your assent as we go. On $350,000,000 of currency own- 
ed and used by the system deducting one-third as we did, for "re- 



98 

serves" or failure to loan, and we have the actual volume in circu- 
lation by the whole systems, in round numbers as $234,000,000 per 
annum. The annual interest or income on this $23,400,000 and in 
ten years it is just equal to $234,000,000 — or equal to the circu- 
lation at simple interest, and this repeated each decade the systems 
lasts. 

And this the American people pay for the constitutional right, 
guaranteed to them by their government ; that of the use of a suffi- 
cient volume of legal tender money to carry on the commerce of the 
country. Pay it to whom? To their government as a tax to sup- 
port it? 

No, into the private pockets of a class of leeches, who have 
fastened like the railroad corporations upon a branch of the public 
service and farm it and rob the people for enormous private gain. 
This class of corporations tax the American people for the right to 
use their own money, $4.60 per capita per annum. They and the 
railroad corporations, full ten dollars per capita per annum for the 
right to live and exist in their country in a civilized state for their 
transportation and money. Nor is this half their avenue and mo- 
tive to unjust and extortionate gain. The thinking mind sees at a 
glance the}' hold now one-half the currency volume, one-half the 
power that was exercised by Congress from 1865 to 1873, that of 
contracting the volume of the currency in concert with other mon- 
ied corporations ; and thus at at any time they may multiply the 
value of their money by two and cause the debts of the country to 
be paid in a dear dollar ; and thus enhance their wealth by enor- 
mous per cents in one year. For there is no law to compel them to 
loan money; for them to refuse to loan is to "contract the volume 
of the currency," doing duty in the hands of the people to any de- 
gree they choose to about 50 per cent of its volume ; can you see a 
motive on their part to seek to drive the legal tender notes, the oth- 
er half the people's currency from the field? Once in circulation 
the entire volume of legal tender, as such, do not cost the people, 
their government $1000 per annum ; nothing only to register and 
re-issue those that become worn and frayed by use. The same vol- 
ume of bank notes cost the people, other than the bankers, $23,- 
400,000 per annum ; the legal tender notes a sum too trifling to be 
named in that connection. The people pay them for their bonds 
notes in interest each ten years, and yet never oAvn them, and we 
think enough is seen to show the unholy motive that has led that 
system to attempt to drive the legal tender notes from the field and 
occupy it themselves. If they could accomplish that then they 
would cost the people annually $46,800,000 per annum. 

On the other hand if the situation were reversed and they 
were driven from the field the $46,800,000 now actually paid could 
be applied annually to the extinguishment of the national debt. Yes 
the motive of greed is too plain to be mistaken. 

(2). Have they made an effort to destroy the legal tender notes 
and since 1878 the coinage of silver and supply their place with 



99 

hank currency? To do this, provision must be made to perpetuate 
the banks. 

To do that at least a portion oj the national debt sufficient to 
be held by them as securities for their issues of notes, say from sev- 
en to ten hundred millions of dollars of it must be perpetuated. 

And to this end they have persistently contended for every 
measure whose tendency was in that direction ; and opposed every 
one that favored the payment of the debt. 

In the so-called "act to strengthen the public credit enacted by 
Congress in 1869, they took great interest. By providing that bonds 
paid for with depreciated legal tender notes, that recited in their 
face they were "payable in lawful money of the country," should 
be paid in coin, the effect was to add about twenty-five per cent to the 
value of the bond and its burdens to the people. One of the truths that 
is impressed upon the mind of an intelligent observer of the manipu- 
lations of the financial management and legislation of the country 
for twenty years in this matter is, it is palpable and clear that 
this banking influence has converted to its unholy, unjust 
and extortionate purposes every president of the United States 
since Lincoln down ; every Secretary of the Treasury, since and in- 
cluding Hugh McCullough of 18G4, and every Controller of the cur- 
rency. 

Every one of these officers have prostituted their high trust to 
its dictates, in recommendations and arguments to the effect. (1). 
That it was the tacit understanding when issued, that the legal ten- 
der notes, soon as possible, should be withdrawn from circulation ; 
that they were a "war necessity" and now should be "refunded" in 
interest-bearing bonds. (2.) That they were unconstitutional as 
money in time of peace, and therefore could not be legally re-issued 
since the war censed. (3.) That to accomplish a "Resumption of 
specie payments" they must be retired and refunded into long term 
bonds. If an intelligent reader desires to be fully convinced of the 
truth of this we cite him to the messages of the presidents, the 
"Reports" of the Secretaries of the Treasury and the Controllers 
of the currency on the subject. They are shameless, brazen, 
groundless arguments against the peoples' money, 350 millions of 
dollars as we have shown that did not cost them $10,000 per annum, 
to compass its destruction, so it might be supplied with one (not a 
legal tender, as the banknotes are not only for certain purposes) and 
that would add to the already overtaxed, overburdened people, a 
load of $350,000,000 to the principal of their interest-drawing na- 
tional debt and $56,800,000 per annum in interest, to have the very 
same volume of paper currency they have had. Our purpose and 
space will permit only a few quotations to prove what we say. 

"The United States notes commonly known as legal tender 
notes regarded as a substitute for money are an anomaly in our 
mouttary system, tolerable and possible only in the exigencies of 
civil war — the offspring of its perils and limited to its necessities. 

To allow their continuance as such after the cause which justi- 



100 — - 

fied their existence had ceased, is to violate the conditions of their 
inception and to sanction what was only tolerable as a necessity by 
impressing upon it the stamp of legitimacy. The purport of the 
legal tender note was and is a promise to pay.'' 

Report of B. H. Bristow, Secretary of U. S. Treasury, "Fi- 
nance Report of 1876" page (13), and "Finance Report 1875" 
from page (9) to page (26) covers nearly one-half of his printed 
report "Finance Report 1874" page 10 to 13; this suborned officer 
prostitutes his ability and high station to arguments to destroy the 
legal tender notes and praise and show the beauties and advantages 
of the National banks. Insinuates the legal tender notes are "ille- 
gitimate." If they had not been coined out of the faith and patri- 
otism of the common people to save it, the Republic he thus traitor- 
ously sought to betray might not have been in existence to pay him 
the salary he did not deserve. By the use of such arguments as 
the above the Congress was induced to enact the famous 
or rather infamous "Resumption Act." We ask thoughtful 
readers to get this law and read it for themselves. It should have 
been named an act to destroy the paper fractional currency, the legal 
tender notes, put national bank currency in their place and perpetu- 
ate them and a part of the national debt. It had no other purpose 
in view. 

It provides first for issue of thirty millions five per cer cent untaxed 
bonds to buy silver to coin into our present fractional currency. 
Next that all the restrictions upon national banks as to the amount 
of currency they might issue was repealed. They could give us a great- 
er or less volume of currency as they choose, we were to be at their 
mercy. 

Next the Secretary of the Treasury was to issue bonds to buy 
legal tender notes and destroy them, until only $300,000,000 of 
them remained. 

Then on and after January 1, 1879, the Secretary of the Treas- 
ury should issue bonds and buy "coin'' and redeem the legal tender 
notes as fast as the}' fell into government hands and to destroy 
them. 

The effect of it was to refund the legal tender notes into thirty 
year four per cent bonds, untaxed and put national bank notes in 
their place. And that was the "resumption," for which our subsid- 
ized presidents, secretaries of the treasury, controllers of the cur- 
rency and a subsidized press, had clamored for ten years. We in- 
vite thinking readers to dwell here a little. The law is entitled, 
"An Act to provide for the Resumption of specie payments." 
What does the word "resumption" mean? It is made of two latin 
words, re, meaning again, and sumere, to take; so that literally it 
means to take again. As used in our financial literature it means to 
take again, to resume the "specie payments" we had at and prior to 
the commencement of our late civil war and from which we at that 
time departed. Hence to really know what it means, if anything 
we must inquire the nature of the "specie payments," from which 



101- 

we at that time departed and to which this act "provides" we shall 
return ; or we shall resume. 

We have neither time or space here to dilate upon the state of 
the national currency, at and prior to 1861. Sufficient to say it has 
been denounced and most truthfully by the champions of the na- 
tional banking system as one of the most stupendous frauds until 
that time. It was a system of "red dog" and "wild cat" paper cur- 
rency, issued by irresponsible State banks and purporting to be "a 
currency based upon and convertible into coin." In fact as a sys- 
tem, as the sequel, in the day of trial showed, and as a sample of 
bank honesty, it proved to be a system, in which from $16.00 to 
$1,000 paper currency, "was based upon and redeemable in $1.00 
of coin," and this is the "specie payments we must pay the mod- 
est sum of $74,800,000 per annum to our modest national bankers 
to "resume." Does it seem the accommodation is. worth the price? 
If this was and it is what it means, if it means anything, does it 
not present a cheerful prospect? A system that "suspended specie" 
or any other payment seven times in forty years, once in each six ; 
a system that at the first shot fired on Sumpter in 1861 "suspended" 
and slammed its iron doors in the faces of an outraged and dumb- 
founded people ? And you can see at a glance if the banks could 
drive the legal tender notes from the field, and supply their place, 
with bank notes then the sole fact that would stand between us and 
a resumption in truth and fact of the "red dog," "wild cat," cur- 
rency of the ante-bellum times, would be the payment of our na- 
tional debt. 

For in that case, the banks would have no bonds to secure their 
issues of notes and we would actually have no security. Yes "re- 
sumption" like every other measure of tyranny and absolutism, like 
an owl, on the dead limb of a dead tree, turn its back to the light 
of the rising sun and coming day of the future and hoots longingly 
after the receding night. It is native and indiginous to the tyrant 
irodden, blood and tear stained and ashes strewn ground of Europe. 
It belongs to the political family and era of "the divine rights of 
kings" and that "a national debt is a great national blessings" 

It means to turn back on the road of advancement and prog- 
ress ; re-take, re-occupy an old, a deserted, a passed camp-ground, 
go back to the past ; and like spiritless slaves, drool and drivel for 
the servitude and "the flesh pots," of the masters in Egypt. 

Let us consider the cold realities of the effects of this act in 
actual cold, hard, dollars to be wrung, from the sweat and toil of 
the American people, by its greed dictated and devilish provisions. 

First then, as to the fifty million dollars of fractional currency 
to be "redeemed." 

Only fort}' million dollars of it ever could "be found, so the gov- 
ernment made $10,000,000 on the transaction of issuing, paying out 
and redeeming it ; a consideration of twenty per cent of the whole 
volume. But government issued $40,000,000 thirty year five per 
cent untaxed bonds to buy silver to make our fractional half and 



102 

quarter dollars and dimes. Let us see how we will stand as a peo- 
ple on this transaction in thirty years when the bonds come due. 

The five per cent annual interest untaxed is as good as a net 
income of seven per cent simple interest per annum ; of course it is 
paid quarterly in gold in advance, as interest is paid on all U. S. 
bonds. 

The annual interest is thus $2,800,000 per annum; in thirty 
years it will be $84,000,000 we have paid ; at that time the principal 
$40,000,000 will also be due. 

Another factor is the truth shown by the statistics and history 
of the mintage ; that silver or gold coin in actual circulation as 
money, is worn, clipped and destroyed as such in thirty years. 

Let us now state our standing on this transaction at that time 
and we have : 

Principal of bonds due $40,000,000 

Interest paid to that date 84,000,000 

Silver coin lost 40,000,000 

Total due and out that day $164,000,000 

That is the absolute state of the account as it will stand on that 
day. We ask any man with any sense to answer what the Ameri- 
can people have received for that immense sum? Nothing in their 
world, but the astute and childish pleasure to jingle and tear the 
pockets out with our base fractional coin r our bank and bond-hold- 
ing masters say is only worth eighty cents on the dollar. 

And what have we now for this immense expenditure? The 
$40,000,000 of bonds due ; we can do as we choose, pay them, or 
"refund them, for another thirty years; yes and "resume" "shin 
plaster" paper fractional currency, or issue $40,000,000 more bonds, 
to buy silver to coin in its stead. But how in the mean time does 
the matter stand, with our masters, the thieving manipulators of 
our currency and finances, who do it, by such means as this "Act 
to provide for a resumption of specie payments?"' They have the 
whole $124,000,000 interest and principal, now in pocket; and more 
than ready to induce us to clamor like fools for "honest hard mon- 
ey," God's mone} r ;" for then they can re-loan it to us onsame terms 
of last thirty years, and well do they know "the borrower is servant 
to the lender." 

Cannot a man with the brains of a lobster see the motive to all 
this European Resumption clamor that has drowned out every evi- 
dence of American common sense in relation to our financial sys- 
tem for the last twenty years, and has substituted the ideas of Eu- 
ropean "Resumption" and English in common sense? 

With a subsidized press and a prostitution of two departments 
of the government to its devilish purpose, in this matter, 
the legislative and the executive, this bank influence for twenty 
years has been and is to-day almost omnipotent, upon this subject 
in our country. And it was the damnable purpose of the act to do 
with the entire volume then (1875) of the legal tender notes, $367,- 



103 

000,000, the very same thing was done with the fractional paper 
currency ; only they were to be refunded into thirty year four per 
cent untaxed bonds. We now ask thinking minds to go with us, 
while we contemplate the fiendish malignitw of a mind that could 
conceive and attempt to put upon its trusting, unsuspecting fellow- 
countrymen, the measures of tyranny it contemplates. 

And it was promptly and piously pursued by that Arnold 
of the people's cause, the Hon. ( ?) John Sherman as Secretary of 
the U. S. Treasury until arrested in the midst of his and the bank- 
er's treasonable plans by the terms of the law of May 31, 1878. 

But let us suppose they had carried out as they were promptly 
proceeding to do, the provisions of the act for redeeming the legal 
tender notes ; it was no fault of theirs they did not succeed. 

First it added $367,000,000 principal to the national debt and 
thus conduced to their end always in view of perpetuating at least 
$700,000,000 of it to be held by the banks. The interest four per 
cent and the exemption from taxation as good as two per cent per 
annum makes the actual income from that principal full six per cent 
per annum ; an annual charge on the people of $22,020,000. In 
thirty years this at simple interest would be $660,600,000. The 
natioual bank notes if the people had any money in their place, say 
$350,000,000 at 7 per cent per annum, would be an annual charge of 
$52,500,000. In thirty years it would only be $1,575,500,000. Now 
let us state our account with the Bankers and Bondholders at the 
day of settlement, as it must come, although put off thirty years: 

Principal bonds due $367,000,000 

Interest paid on them 660,600,000 

Interest on bank notes to supply place of le- 
gal tender notes 1,575,500,000 

Total paid and due $2,603,100,000 

A sum greater by $15,000,000 than the entire national debt at 
the close of the war, 1865. If that measure had gone into effect 
how much of the debt do you think would have been paid at that 
time? 

We ask any man to point out what advantage would have ac- 
crued to the American people for all this intolerable burden, that 
was thus sought to be heaped on the people by their Secretary of the 
Treasury and the banks and their ignorant or willing tools in Con- 
gress ? 

They would have had no more currency than they have had and 
are now having unless forsooth, the bankers did conclude to eke out 
and loan them a little more ; and then they would have to pay for it 
in same ratio. The only change would have been the people would 
have had a volume of $700,000,000 of bank notes instead of about 
half and half of each bank and legal tender notes. 

It is difficult to conceive of this sum. It is an annual charge 
of $74,500,000. 

At a cost of $25.00 per month or $300 per annum, it would 



104 

pay and support a standing army, every year of the thirty of 246,- 
000 men. That is the "legacy" that your Honorable (?) Secretary 
of the Treasury (Sherman) and his colleagues in treason and crime 
had prepared to hand down to your children ! They and their chil- 
dren to be nobles ; we and ours ignobles. They and theirs "lend- 
ers" and masters; we and ours "borrowers" and servants. That it 
may be seen we have not overestimated the cost of this banking 
system to the people, we quote from a speech of this same precious 
Secretary of the Treasury, while he was an U. S. Senator and be- 
fore he was induced to betray the people's cause, on the floor of the 
Senate in 1868. He said of the banks — 

"There is nothing in their business, nor their condition, that 
commends them in an especial manner to the fostering care of Con- 
gress. They are 1,600 in number, with a capital of $400,000,000, 
upon which they draw from the Government a yearly interest of 
$24,000,000. This sum is paid them with the privilege of fleecing 
the people out of $50,000,000 more." 

Thus in 186S. he said their annual cost to the people was $74,- 
000,000 when they only owned one-half or less of the paper curren- 
cy of the country when they were only 1600 in number, now they 
are 2800. Undoubtedly our estimate is far below the truth. But 
we want to carry the assent of thinking minds. True the damna- 
ble purpose of the act was arrested, when the public suffering and 
indignation cried out against it. Our precious Secretary of the 
Treasury was doing the work of his bank masters as punctilliously 
as a galley slave, when arrested by the act, entitled "An act to for- 
bid the further retirement of the legal tender notes," enacted May 
81, 1878. 

Which it did, and ordered the Secretary of the Treasury to re- 
issue all that came into his hands. By this act, May, 1878, the 
main provision, all of the Infamous Resumption Act was repealed 
only that part of it that related to refunding the $40,000,000 of 
fractional currenc}- ; and that toe before the day set in the Act for 
"Resumption" January 1, 1879. If the damnable and tyrannical 
provision of that Act were necessary "to effect resumption;" that 
is that national bank must be substituted for legal tender notes at 
an annual cost to the people of $74,50<>,0n0, equal te the annual 
cost of a standing army of 246,000 men per annum, how did it hap- 
pen that "Resumption came? or did it come without it? 

If it did then that fact alone stamps that treasonable provision 
of the act as one compared to which Arnold's treason and "tiring 
on Sumpter" were innocent as a crime against the country and race 
without parallel in modern times. If it was necessary as this Sec- 
retary and all the others, time and again asserted, then we have now 
no resumption. Our Secretary and the bank oligarchy of treason 
can take either horn of the dilemma they choose. When the Amer- 
ican people awake to the sense of their serfdom, as they will, eith- 
er one will be too hot for them to enjoy the situation. Our Secre- 
tary was like a thief taken in the act by the law of Congress of May 



105 

31, 1878. He and the bankers were sore dismayed, that they were 
not permitted to compass the destruction of the legal tender notes 
under the provisions of the Resumption Act. In his and their 
"Report" to Congress printed at public expense, -'Finance Re- 
port, 1879," page 10, the old bank attorney quotes the provision of 
the law, 1878, requiring him to "re-issue and pay out again" all le- 
gal tender notes, and then proceeds to argue they could only be 
paid out for "coin' 1 or "bullion." And thus he and they hoped to 
and in a measure did evade that provision of the law. And then 
this officer of the government, paid out of its treasury, using its 
money to print and publish his treasonable arguments at the 
suggestion and dictation of his bank masters proceeds to make the 
point and argument against the peoples' money that it cannot, con- 
stitutionally be a legal tender in time of peace and paid out by the 
government, as follows : 

"The Secretary respectfully calls the attention of Congress to 
the question whether United States notes ought still to be a legal 
tender in the payment of debts. The power of Congress to make 
them such was asserted by Congress during the war and was up- 
held by the Supreme Court. The power to issue them in time of 
peace after they are once returned is still contested in the court. 
Prior to 1862, only gold and silver were a legal tender. Bullion 
was deposited by private individuals, in the mints and coined in 
convenient forms and designs indicating weight and fineness. Pa- 
per money is a promise to pay such coin. No constitutional objec- 
tion is raised against the issue of notes not bearing interest to be 
used as a part of the circulating medium. The chief objection to 
the emission of paper money by the government grows out of the 
legal tender clause, for without this the United States note would be 
measured by its convenience, its safety, and itsprompt redemption." 

And of this ad infinitum. Thus did this old political repro- 
bate in the interest of a "a class" prostitute his high office and as- 
sault the peoples' money. Foiled in destroying it and heaping on 
his confiding and suffering fellow-countrymen, a burden of $74,- 
o00,000 per annum, he now seeks to accomplish the same purpose 
by destroying the legal tender quality of that money. Even if the.y were 
not legal tender, even then they were as good a currency for the 
people as the bank notes. And this old apologizer for bank tyr- 
any knew it. But to destroy their legal tender quality put them in 
the power of the banks to refuse to receive them and thus "their 
prompt redemption" would be accomplished. 

He had already stated in this same report the legal tender notes 
were then on a par with gold. The whole volume of $346,000,000 
then nor any year since cost the people $10,000 per annum and 
served every purpose of money. 

But that was just the reason this old ingrate sought their de- 
struction as a currency that on his own statement in 18G8, cost the 
people and paid the bankers the sum of $74,000,000 per annum 



106 

might be substituted in its place. And think one moment of the 
financial ruin such a measure as the sudden and unannounced re- 
peal of the legal tender clause of the legal lender note, then a vol- 
ume of $346,000,000, in the hands of the people, as advised and 
contended for by our Secretary would have caused ! Our panic of 
1873 would have been mild compared with it. And in line with 
this "recommendation" of his is the following on page 14 of same 
Report. "He again respectfully calls the attention of Congress to 
the importance of further limiting the coinage of the silver dollar." 
And why do this? On page 10 of this Report when assailing the 
legal tender note he said: "Prior to 1862 only gold and silver were 
a legal tender. Bullion was deposited by private individuals in the 
mints and coined in convenient forms and designs indicating weight 
and fineness.' 1 And on that bases an argument the legal tender 
clause of the legal tender note, was unconstitutional, it was only "a 
promise to pay money," coin. That is the very effect of the silver 
bill of 1878 ; the government buys the bullion, coins it, at a rate, 
not to exceed four nor less than two million dollars per month and 
makes money in the operation at the rate of about ten per cent on 
all the coin handled. And if the owner of bullion prefers it he can 
have silver certificates in convenient denominations to circulate as 
money and leave the coin or bullion in the treasury. That is "a 
currency based upon and redeemable in coin," the only one the 
country ever had. And that these bank shylocks pretend was what 
they sought and contended for in "Resumption." We would sup- 
pose they would be pleased with "the coinage of silver." Are 
they? They have fought it as mercilessly as they have the legal 
tender note. Why? Because they do not, can not, own and con- 
trol it, as a volume and loan it to the people ; because government 
does not give it to them. 

It puts a money in the field in competition with their bank notes. 
The fruition of their hell-born conspiracy, against the liberties of 
the Republic is, they shall own and control the volume of the cur- 
rency. Hence the assaults on the "coinage of the silver dollar," in 
common with the legal tender notes. And when he and his subsid- 
ized successors have been unable to secure a repeal of the silver 
coinage law, they refused to obey its mandates and have issued the 
silver certificates, in denominations too great to be used by the peo- 
ple as money in denominations $500 and $1,000. We call atten- 
tion next to Report of Charles J. Folger's "Finance Report 1881"' 
page 10. Here we learn that at that time, there were then issued 
$96,000,000 of silver certificats and $34,0(10,000 of standard silver 
dollars in actual circulation among the people. On next page this 
subsidized official shows his indecent haste and eagerness for the 
banker's cause and desire to betray the people in thislanguuge : "As 
is said elsewhere herein the circulation of some sixty-six millions of 
silver certificates seems an inexpedient addition to the paper cur- 
rency. 



107 

They are made a legal tender for the purposes named, yet have 
for their basis about eighty-eight per cent, only of their nominal 
value. 

There is no promise from government to make good the differ- 
ence between their actual and nominal value. There need be no 
apprehension of a too limited paper circulation. (No certainly not.) 
"The national banks are ready to issue their notes in such quantity, 
as the laws of trade demand (they being the judges) and as securi- 
ty therefor the government will hold an equivalent in itsown bonds." 
And the idiots, the people, can borrow the bank notes as money at 
the rate, seven per cent per annum ; paj- for them each ten years in 
interest and yet never own them. He seems to presume upon their 
ignorance ; as their plans unfold and he and the bankers fear defeat, 
their audacity betrays them. 

Certainly the banks are ready to issue the paper money of the 
Republic and have been for fifteen } T ears only too eager to do it. 
This Secretary of the Treasury, like the rest, thinks the people are 
too dull of comprehension, to understand the effect of his, the 
bankers' and bondholders' conspiracy. And on page 12 of the same 
Report, this servant of the shylocks pleads their cause against the 
people in this language : "This department has little to add to 
what has been said in former reports from it on the notes known as 
legal tender notes. That they are convenient and safe for the com- 
munity is without doubt. That it is also for the profit of the gov- 
ernment to continue them is also without doubt. Yet there is one 
consideration that should have notice and that is whether the gov- 
ernment can continue to claim for them, the quality of being legal 
tender for debts. This department understands that the constitu- 
tionality of making them a solvent of contracts, was founded in the 
exigencies of the government raised by the civil war." 

If they are at par with gold as they have been since 1879, "con- 
venient and safe for the community," and "it is for the profit of 
government to continue them," in the name of the great American 
people and the world's republic, who has an objection to them? No 
one but the traitorous horde of bond and bank ingrates who want 
to and have for centuries eaten "their bread in the sweat of other 
men's faces" by levying their devilish S3 r stems of perpetual usury draw- 
ing debt upon the people, and here we have the humiliating spectacle 
of a bribed, sworn officer, as their mouth-piece, making an argument 
to strip the people of their legal tender money coined of their faith, 
credit and patriotism and baptized in their blood and tears, and thus 
sanctified, in the war to put down the chattel slaveholders' rebellion. 
And this shameless attorney has only done half hisdut when he has 
assaulted and tried to outlaw and destroy the legal tender note. No, 
here is the standard silver dollar still coined at the rate of $2,000,- 
000 per month or $>24,0<>( 1,000 per annum. It is crowding his bank 
masters in the field of the peoples' money. 

Yes, there is another currency that does not bring any income 
to his bank masters ; he must need strike it and the peoples' cause 



108 

one more blow. Hear this pettifogger of the tyrant's cause, page 
15, same report." "The silver question obviously is one that de- 
mands the early attention of our law makers or the snbject may 
drift beyond our (that is his and the banker's) control, unless con- 
trol is retained at a great sacrifice." (To whom we ask? Who 
complains of silver but this official and his confederates.) "A con- 
tinuance of the monthly addition to our silver coinage will soon 
leave us no choice, but that of an exclusive silver coinage and tend 
to reduce us in the commercial world among the minor and less civ- 
ilized nations." * * "It is therefore recommended that 
tbe provision for the coinage of a fixed amount per month be re- 
pealed and the Secretary be authorized to coin only so much as will 
be necessary to supply the demand" he and his bank confederates 
being the judges. 

They have always claimed there was no "demand" at all for 
the coinage of the standard silver dollar, that it is dishonest and a 
fraud. This sworn salaried officer and expounder of the constitu- 
tion of the republic has the sublime impudence in the interests of a 
class to ask "the Congress" to abdicate control on this subject and 
turn it over to his control in direct violation of the letter and spirit 
of the constitution. Once done, farewell to the coinage of silver, 
for he and the banker would conclude none was "necessary to the 
supply the demand." These men have so long gone unrebuked and 
unwhipped of justice, they have the impudence of their English 
political ancestors and of the devil when he took Jesus up into an 
exceedingly high mountain." 

We shall quote from the messages of but two Presidents to 
Congress ; first, that of Mr. Arthur in 1882. He clearly discloses 
the policy of the conspirators to prevent and retard the payment of 
the national debt ; his zeal ran away with his discretion in this lan- 
guage in that document. 

"Such rapid extinguishment of the national debt as is now taking 
place, is by no means a cause for congratulation ; it is a cause rath- 
er for serious apprehension. If it continues it must speedily be 
followed by one of the evil results, so clearly set forth in the report 
of the Secretary — either tlvat the surplus must lie idle in the treas- 
ury or the government will be forced to buy at market rates its 
bonds not then redeemable, which under such circumstances cannot 
fail to command enormous premiums, or the swollen revenues will be 
devoted to extravagant expenditures which our experience has 
taught is ever the bane of an overflowing treasury." 

Is not that a piece of profound statesmanship? The "rapid ex- 
tinguishment of the national debt," that is, a little over half of it in 
twenty years, is no matter of congratulation. No, indeed, to the 
national bankers, presidents, secretaries and controllers, who have 
racked their brains to devise ways and means how not to'pay the na- 
tional debt. For if paid it relegates their banks to the shades of 
the past. If this "extinguishment" is so rapid as to be a ground 
for "serious apprehension," we suppose none at all would relieve 



109 

them. It is a mild way of trying the English doctrine "that a na- 
tional debt is a national blessing," on the American people. 

The following from Mr. Hayes' message to Congress, 1879, 
shows his ignorant or wilful servility to the plans of the oligarchy : 

"There are still in existence, uncanceled, $346,681,016 of 
United States legal-tender notes. These notes were authorized as a 
war measure, made necessary by the exigencies of the conflict in 
which the United States was then engaged. The preservation of 
the Nation's existence required, in the judgment of Congress, an 
issue of legal tender paper money. That it served well the purpose 
for which it was created is not questioned, but the employment of 
the notes as currency indefinitely, after the accomplishment of the 
object for which they were provided, was not contemplated by the 
framers of the law under which they were issued. These notes long 
since became like any other pecuniary obligation of the Government 
— a debt to be paid, and when paid to be canceled as mere evidence 
of an indebtedness no longer existing. I therefore repeat what was 
said in the annual message of last year, that the retirement from 
circulation of United States notes with the capacity of legal tender 
in private contracts, is a step to be taken in our progress towards a 
safe and stable currency, which should be accepted as the policy 
and duty of the Government and the interest and security of the 
people." 

The}- were "a debt to be paid;" yes, paid over and over again 
to an anglicised alien bank oligarchy and aristocracy. Yes, sir, you 
and the whole cordon of treason have "repeated." over and over 
again your foul, treasonable arguments, recommendations and com- 
mands. But, thank God, the people have not yet complied with 
your desires. 

But some of our readers may say, that is all of republican ad- 
ministration ; wait until there is a change. We will only quote 
enough from Secretary Manning's "Finance Report, 1885," to show 
no change was made in the policy, unless the bank conspiracy is 
more audacious under the new than the old : 

On page 15 the Secretary, under the title "Currency Reform," 
shows that all the reform he seeks is to undo all that has been done 
in behalf of the people in this matter in the last twenty years. He 
says : "Currency reform is first in the order of importance and time, 
and fitly precedes other reforms, even taxation reform, because it 
will facilitate all other reforms, and because it cannot safely be de- 
ferred." (These are very just observations ; but we shall see this 
minister of the republic proceed to reform all that is just instead of 
the abuses. He commences to reform at the same end of affairs 
that Louis XVI. and Charles I. did.) 

"The coinage act of 1878 is overloading the mints with unis- 
sued, the sub-treasuries with returned silver dollars, and will una- 
voidably convert the funds of the Treasury into these depreciated 
and depreciating coins." And this official used all the power of 
his department to defeat the benefits of the silver, coined as a money 



110 

for the people, as was clearly pointed out by Senator Beck in his 
memorable speech and expose of the villainies of that department, 
practiced for years, in the debate on the bill to suspend silver coin- 
age. This unblushing Secretary writes of this matter as if the coin- 
age and money of the country was made for bankers only. Whoever 
heard of the standard dollar being "depreciated or depreciating," in 
the estimation of anybody but this cordon of unstriped convicts? He 
continues: "The disorders of our currency chiefly arise from the 
operation of two enactments: 1. The act of February 23rd, 1878, 
which has been construed as a permanent appropriation for perpet- 
ual treasury purchases of at least $24,000,000 worth of silver per 
annum, although, from causes mostly foreign, that metal is now 
mutable and falling in value,) which must be manufactured into 
coins of unlimited legal tender and issued to the people of the Unit- 
ed States as equivalent of our monetary unit." 

Yes, this, the first victory of the people over organized con- 
spiracy of legal and political scoundrelism in twenty years, must be 
repealed as the first step to "reform;" that is. to "reform" the re- 
public to subjection to the minions of greed. Hear the second great 
cause of complaint of this bribed official: 

"2. The act of May 31st, 1878, which indefinitely postponed 
the fulfillment of the solemn pledge (March 18th, 1869,) not only of 
"redemption" but also of "payment" of all the obligations of the 
United States not bearing interest, legalized as $346,000,00 » paper 
money of unlimited legal tender, and required the past-redemption 
issue and re-issue of this promise to pay dollars to the people of the 
United States as equivalents of our monetary unit." 

The bank flunkey actually seems mad : how he and the bank- 
ers cling to that solemn, suborned pledge of 1869. He does not 
remember, when speaking contemptuously of the legalized $346, 000,- 
000 paper money," that the banks, during the same period, owned 
and issued a volume nearly as great of "paper money" that was not 
legal tender. He forgets that the American people were saved the 
sum of $74,500,000 per annum every year since, by the patriots who 
enacted that wise measure ; saved to them a tax equal to a standing 
army of 246, 'Hie men per annum, at a cost of $300 per man. 

But what enrages him is, the people retain this, and the bankers 
cannot rob them of it. Here is what Senator Beck, of Kentucky, 
said in a speech on the floor of the U. S. Senate, Feb. 9th, 1885, 
of the bank influence of to-day, in the debate on the bankers' bill 
to strike down the coinage of silver : 

"Yet to-day, in order to force us to strike down silver, these 
banks, in violation of the law, are combining with others, although 
they are prohibited by the very act granting their charters from do- 
ing so, and are refusing to receive silver certificates, for the purpose, 
of course, of making them less valuable, the laws of Congress to the 
contrary, notwithstanding. Mr. President, I do not care to argue 
this matter elaborately, indeed, I do not care to do it all, but when 
we discuss it I think it will be shown to the satisfaction of the peo- 



Ill 

pie of the country that the present condition is the result of an un- 
lawfid combination, organized in part by men who are our fiscal 
agents, our creatures, living under our law, having only such au- 
thority as we see fit to give them, and yet they are publicly defying 
our authority, because they think it is their individual interest to 
do so. The}- are endeavoring to drive silver and the silver certifi- 
cates which we have provided for out of existence, in order to bring 
gold to a premium, and thus embarrass the government of this 
country." 

And our Secretary Manning was a party to the conspiracy, as 
every one of them has been since 1864. 

"With officers to enforce the law we have law enough, with of- 
ficials here, to compel them to obey it. We have law enough, but 
there is no effort to punish them, and never has been anything but 
pretenses. 11 „ 

Mr. Morgan. — "If I understand the statement made by the 
Senator from Kentucky, a member of the Committee on Finance, it 
is that the banks have deliberately violated the laws, the criminal 
laws of the United States ; that the Secretary of the Treasury re- 
ports these violations to Congress and to the Committee on Finance, 
and instead of there having been any proceedings taken to punish 
the men who openly and flagrantly violate the lnw, a mere admoni- 
tion is served upon them that hereafter they must do better than 
that, or else they will be dealt with. Is that the situation?" 

* Mr. Beck. — "That is the way I understand it, substantially." 

Mr. Morgan. — "Last spring I received quite a rebuff in the 
Senate for having invited the Committee on Finance to look into 
this question, and make a report upon it. The resolution that I had 
the honor to introduce was referred to that Committee, and they 
Hat down upon it. They have got it still in the Committee, without 
having paid the slightest attention to it, I believe; and now it turns 
out, from the statement of a member of the Committee on Finance, 
that all of those able Senators have been cognizant of the fact these 
crimes have been committed ; that the President of the United 
States has been cognizant of the fact these crimes have been com- 
mitted, and that they have not got the power to call these criminals 
to justice, and punish them for the violation of the law. I will 
further add, if the Senator from Kentuck} T will permit me, that 
there is no use multiplying statutes merely to be dishonorded by 
the Senate of the United States by its constant ignoring of crime 
committed against law, which they refuse to take any step to insist 
shall be punished." 

Congressional Record, Vol. 16, part 2, pages 1461 and 1462. 
This was plain, speaking in the teeth of some of the Arch Conspira- 
tors and "criminals." The first plain truth spoken on that floor 
for twenty years, on that subject. Thank God for two tribunes of 
the people, two unterrified, unbribed Romans, who dared tell the 
criminals of their high crimes and treason to their faces. What a 
humiliation! TwoSenators of the United States, on their oaths, fac- 



112 

ing that depraved body, telling it in plain terms of crimes and acts 
of treason; at which it "winked." That law, made for that class of 
criminals "was constantly and persistently ignored" by them and 
the President. And no political ingrate or scoundrel among them, 
dared attempt to refute the charge of these patriots; if they did, 
they knew the half had not been told and the expose would only be 
more merciless 

The policy of that class is "addition, division and silence ." 
Treat such unbribed, fearless patriots as Senators Morgan and Beck, 
Congressman Weaver, of Iowa, and others, with silence? 

It remains to be seen whether they can carry out that policy; 
if they can, farewell to the liberties of the republic. "They who 
sleep upon their rights, will soon awake amid their wrongs." The 
American people "are amid their wrongs" and are still asleep. Can 
any one now doubt the organized assault of the banks upon all other 
species of currency, the legal tender note and the silver coinage 
and certificates, all but that of gold? That by undue and criminal 
influence it has converted two departments of government and their 
officers to obey its behests? What feeling but that of contempt can 
be inspired for a government that will punish petty offences of clip 
ping or counterfeiting a few coins, or a little currency and then 
"wink" at wholesale conspiracies to violate and public violations 
of the law committed against its currency of ten hundred times the 
magnitude?' — The only difference is, the one class of petty offences 
are committed by poor individuals; the wholesale crimes, akin to 
treason are committed by wealthy corporations Our "Rump Cor 
poration Millionaire Parliament" as usual "strains at a (private) 
gnat and swallows a (corporation) camel" without a blink 

The National banks never were intended to be a permanent in- 
stitution of the country by the men who created them. It has ever 
been the policy of our government to pay in time ot peace the un- 
avoidable debts contracted in time of war. But for these banks to 
be permanent about a thousud million dollars of the debt must he 
made perpetual. The measure of the banks was a compromise with 
the minions of greed to secure the passage of the legal 
tender acts. And the men who enacted t lie first law tried to re- 
strain them by many wholesome provis'ons. In no case were they 
to have and issue more than $300,000,000 of bank notes; they were 
to be distributed over the States and territories according to popu- 
lation ascertained by the census ; they were in no case to have cur 
rency to exceed ninety per cent of the principal of bonds, pledged 
for its redemption ; they were taxed one per cent per annum on cir- 
culation and for revenue on checks and drafts. One by one they 
have assaulted every one of these provisons and now the last one 
is gone. No limit on the amount of currency they may issue ; they 
may have currency to the par value of the bonds and the taxes are 
repealed. Not onlv that it has gone into the cabinet of the execu- 
tive and officers of heads of departments and into the Congress and 
by nameless and undue influences secured such action and legisla- 



113 

tion as is a public scandal and are positive subversions of the Con- 
stitution. (1.) Was its shameless and brazen intermeddling in pro- 
curing the so-called '"Act to strengthen the public credit in 18G9. 

In fact it was intended to and did add twenty-five per cent to the 
public debt in value to the bondholders and in burdens to the people 
and tended in that much to perpetuate it. In fact it did not "strength- 
en the public credit," as the value of the legal tender, as our barome- 
ter of that fact since it has been in existence, shows our credit rose 
faster by one-half before than after the passege of the act. (2). 
Was its undue influence seen in the fraud practiced on the country 
in demonetizing silver in all sums over five dollars under the pre- 
tense of Revising the Laws concerning the mints and coinage in 
1878. (3.) In the Infamous Resumption Act, passed for no pur- 
pose, but to destroy the fractional currency and the legal tender 
notes and put bank notes in their place. If its provisions had been 
carried out, we would now be absolutely at their mercy as to the 
volume of the currency. " Whosoever controls the volume of the 
currency is absolute master of the commerce and industries of the 
country," said Garfield, cne of the ablest advocates of their cause 
against the people whoever spoke upon the subject. (4.) But in 
1878 a little spirit of resistance to its t3<rannical assumptions was 
shown in Congress. In February came the remonetizing and coin- 
age of silver at the rate of not less than two nor more than four 
millions of standard dollars per month in the discretion of the Sec- 
retary of the treasury ; since they and the banks were hostile to sil- 
ver coinage only $24, ()<>(),< 00 per annum has been coined. And in 
May, same year, came the law to arrest the further destruction and 
require the re-issue of legal tender notes and repeal the infamous 
tyrannical provisions of the "Resumption" act. These were the 
first defeats of its influence. Since 1878 the house has had a little 
red blood of the people in it. But our Senate and the executive 
department with its cabinet has always and yet stand fast allies of 
the banks. They stand as true to it as the Nobility to Charles I, 
the "Notables" to Louis XVI and the hessians and tories to George 
III. Since 1878 it and its allies have made headway but slowly in 
the face of the rebellion of the House to its tyrannical purposes. 
But defiant in its unpunished course of crime it determined to as- 
sault and carry and use for its purposes the last stronghold of the 
constitution and the peoples' liberties, the conscience and heart of 
the nation, the judicial department. It said to itself if by fawning 
treason, brazen impudence and undue influence, such as has succeed- 
ed with the Senate and Executive Department, this one can be car- 
ried to subserve our purpose, then is the peoples' cause and their 
money, the legal tender notes, overthrown. 

Then the "dumb, driven cattle," will be subjected to servitude 
by a decision of the highest tribunal of the country. Just as the 
"chattel slaveholder" in the last extreme of his cause and in the 
height of his "pride" that goeth before destruction," sought to 
draw a decision from that court to sanction his unjust assumptions in 



114 

the famous "Dred Scott Decision." So now the "Wage Slavehold- 
er," will have a decision of the Supreme Court, declaring that the 
great American people, "in time of peace." and for "their own 
convenience" and "the profit of their government" cannot keep in 
circulation among them for domestic use, a volume of $346,009,- 
000 of legal tender notes without the consent of their bank masters. 
That is to say that the "wage slaves have no rights that their bank 
masters are bound to respect." Yes, said our bank masters among 
themselves, we will secure a decision that shall declare the legal ten- 
der acts of Congress so far as the legal tender quality of the treas- 
ury notes are concerned, have been and now are unconstitutional. 
Our "Dred Scott Decision," will reduce the House and people to 
their position of servility and subjection occupied until 1878. And 
by this decision we can pay all expenses ; for in thirty years after 
the destruction of the legal tender notes at the rate of $74,500,0(10 
interest on bonds and bank currency we can reap out of the sweat 
and toil of the wage-slave a sum sufficient to have paid $750 per 
head for every one of the 3,000,000 chattel slaves freed by the 
shedding of the blood and $2,750,000,000 of treasury of the late 
war. Make }^our own calculation and it will do it. You see this 
devilish influence has a moive to continue a siege of thirty years in 
time of peace upon the constitution and liberties of the 
people. That sum would print a good many sweet-scented rose- 
tinted "memorials" to the "Rump Corporation and Millionaire Par- 
liament" and subsidize a venal press for fifty years. The American 
people are asleep! Will they never arouse? No such question in- 
volving such supreme human interests, was ever before in the his- 
tory of the world, presented to an earthly tribunal as that involved 
in the issues submitted to the Supreme Court of the United States. 
in the Famous Legal Tender Cause, Knox vs. Lee, et al, 12 Wallace 
Report. The Revolutionary Fathers in 1776, rebelled against direct 
"taxation without representation" by direct claim of absolute pre- 
rogative" to do it by George III. They rebelled because the prin- 
ciple asserted by George III and his ministry, denied to the colo- 
nies, the right of "representation;'' and thus denied to them every 
attribute of national sovereignty as a people. And this right they 
claimed as Englishmen ; nor did they refuse to be taxed to defray 
the expenses of the then late "French and Indian War;" but refus- 
ed to be unless done impliedly at least with their consent by a body 
or parliament in which they were represented. But they did not 
rebel against the tax of the usurers that for a century had been lev- 
ied on the Englishmen by means of interest on a perpetual 
debt and bank of England notes based on the debt. That species 
of tyranny and "prerogative" did not figure in the Revolution of 
1776. No declaration of independence in terms was made or gain- 
ed en that subject. The issue was made on the issue of direct 
"taxation without representation" and gained on that issue. 

And against the fact of encroachment on the liberties of the 
people from this stand-point the fathers made ample provision in the 



115 

constitution. Against the fact of encroachment by the usurer and 
his indirect tax by assuming the functions of the sovereignty of the 
people of England, that of issuing and emitting the volume of the 
paper currency of the nation to the people by loaning it to them in 
bank of England notes, no provision was made in express or any 
terms. 

For three centuries nearly, the English people have been chat- 
tel mortgaged to the aristocracy and Jewish usurers by a perpetual 
national debt, so great it is dmitted there is no hope, of paying 
anything but the interest ; they, their children, and children's chil- 
dren are mortgaged after them in perpetuity. Our shoddy, apish, 
would be aristocracy, since 1863, have been eager listeners and 
learners at the knees of the thick blue-blooded, brutal class, who 
have owned and still own this chattel mortgage, on the masses of 
the English people. And they have concluded it would be a good 
thing for them to import the English monarchial system to and en- 
graft it upon the World's Republic. And in this enterprise they 
have the hearty co-operation and sympathy of all the royal and ar- 
istocratic drones and thieves in Europe, who from generation to 
generation have eaten their bread in the sweat, blood and tears of 
the masses of the common people. Even the world's republic had 
never declared or gained its independence on this subject. Indeed it 
has had its constitution besieged and assaulted by the hessian army 
of usurers and their English aristocratic allies for twenty years ; and 
in the infamous Resumption Act, we had Yorktown reversed ; the 
stars and stripes wfcre lowered and folded in defeat and shame ; it 
was a direct denial of the existence of the sovereign right of the 
people, to own, issue, by their government and control the volume 
of their paper legal tender currency. It was the direct denial of the ex- 
istence and right of the exercise of that function of the sovereignty 
of the people by the Congress in whom they vested that power in their 
constitution and surrender of it to 2500 national bank corporations, 
"little copies of their faithful sire;" faithful to tyranny, faithful to 
the political ancestors of Charles I and II, to be exercised by them, 
the corporations, at their own sweet wills. 

And, in that cause, Knox vs. Lee et al, we have the assault of 
our class of usurers, the polit cal deseendents and spawn of the 
"tories" of '76, ' the direct deseendents politically^ of Charles I, Louis 
XVI and George III, upon that greatest political fact, of the Chris- 
tian Era; yes, and the world, the attribute of the sovereignty of the 
Great American people. These political vermin of the middle ages, 
these barnacles of civilizat on, these owls of to-day asserted no such 
at l'ibute of the sovereignty of the people abided with them; nor 
were they able to "vest" in "the Congress," by their constitution, 
'■the poser" to coin and emit and control the volume and use a 
legal tender paper currency. 

Their logic was, the legal tender notes were not, could not be, 
legal tender money ; nothing but gold coin could be ; get the Su- 
preme Court to so declare ; then we, who now own and control the 



116 

gold, and half the paper currency of the country, in bank notes, and 
now have the peoples' notes for $300,000,000 of our bank notes, — 
when they come to pay us we will refuse, as we then may, the legal 
tender notes, and the people then will be compelled to ask that they 
be taken out of circulation and some other currency put in their 
place, we will accept. And then we are ready with our notes, and 
we will at last carry out the "Yorktown" reversed policy of the "Re- 
sumption Act." 

There is no doubt of this being the policy. The reader will 
observe that at least once Mr. Sherman, the mouthpiece of this con- 
spiracy, in his "Report" quoted herein, refers to the legal tender 
quality of the notes ''being now contested in the courts," and this 
refers to this cause. And he and all of the Secretaries and Presi 
dents reiterated time and again they were not constitutional legal 
tender in time of peace. Thus did this reactionary embodyment of 
the spirit of the middle ages rear its deformed head, in the highest 
tribunal of the World's Republic, and demand of it a decision to 
bastardize as illegitimate the fact of the sovereignty of the people 
of the Republic. 

And all this to turn the people back into bondage at a rate of 
$74,500,000 per annum. Americans never half comprehended the 
momentous interests involved. Several other peoples since we did, 
have made, and made good, our declaration of independence against 
George III. and his minions, and others of his kith and kin. But 
no other has ever yet made, nor have we yet made good, the second 
declaration ot independence, against the usurers 

We are in the midst of the struggle for the second declaration 
of independence yet. Our Supreme Court, thank God, worthy of 
its high office, laid down clearly the principles of the second Declar- 
ation. But the "allied army" is still entrenched in the U. S. Senate 
and the Executive department. We quote the statement of the im- 
portance of the issue involved, by Judge Strong, who wrote the 
opinion in the cause : "The controling questions in these cases are 
the following: Are the acts of Congress known as "The Legal 
Tender Acts" constitutional when applied to contracts made before 
their passage ; and secondly, are they valid as applicable to debts 
contracted since their enactment? These questions have been elab- 
orately argued, and they have received from the Court that consid- 
eration which their great importance demands. It would be difficult 
to overestimate the consequences which must follow our decision. 
They will affect the entire business of the country, and take hold 
of the possible continued existence of the government. If it be held 
by this Court that Congress has no constitutional power, under any 
circumstances, or in any emergency, to make treasury notes a legal 
tender for all debts, (a power confessedly possessed by every inde- 
pendent sovereignty other than the United States), the government 
is without those means of self-preservation which all must admit 
may, in certain contingencies, become indispensable, even if they 



117 

were not when the acts of Congress now called in question were 
enacted." 

These greedy political jackals did not hesitate to compromise 
"the possible continued existence of the government" of the World's 
Republic to compass their unholy purposes. They did not hesitate 
to declare its attributes of sovereignty to be illegitimate, imbecile, 
and bastardized; that it was a political nullius fillius; a nondescript, 
a nonentity, a helpless sham of the power "confessedly possessed 
by every independent sovereignty other than the United States." 
Proceeding, the court say, "Indeed, legal tender treasury notes have 
become the universal measure of values. If, now, by our decision, 
it be established that these debts and obligations can be discharged 
only by gold coin; if contrary to the expectations of all parties to 
these contracts, legal tender notes are rendered unavailable, thegov- 
erninent has been an instrument of the grossest injustice; all debt- 
ors are loaded with an obligation it was never contemplated they 
should assume; a large percentage is added to every debt and such 
must become the demand for gold to satisfy contracts, that ruinous 
sacrifices, general distress and bankruptcy may be expected.'' And 
that was the tuillenium of "resumption" clamored for by these politi- 
cal vandals, who claim and pretend to be so solicitous about an 
"honest dollar" and "honest money" for the laboring man 

That is the result of their measures as asked to be sustained 
by the Supreme Court of the United States, and as it plainly sees 
their effect will be. Aftei proceeding to answer other sophistries 
of the conspirators, at length, the Court reaches the question of 
'sovereignty" involved After stating that all the power of the 
states over thecurrency is taken away by the constitution, the opin- 
ion proceeds to say, "Whatever power there is over the currency 
is vested in Congress If the power to declare what is money is 
not in Congress it is annihilated. This may indeed not have been 
intended Some powers that usually belonged to sovereignties were 
extinguished; their extinguishment was not left to inference." 

For mstance, taxation without representation; transportation 
over the sea for trial, and in short, all the category of "abuses" 
complained of in the declaration But, as we have suggested, the 
fathers did not deal with the assumptions of the English usurers in 
direct terms And if all power over the currency is taken away 
from the States, even, and "vested in the Congress," we beg leave 
to ask by what authority, or by what mode of reasoning is the 
right, or power of Congress deduced, to "coin" or strike the bank 
currency, and at that point abandon and abdicate all further cus- 
tody, or control over it; deliver it to an alien banking system, to 
emit and issue, or not, as suits its absolute and tyranical purposes 
and thus to "regulate the value of money," by regulating and con- 
trolling the "volume" of it? If such control and power was too 
great and sacred to be left to the states, how does it come it is not 
too great and sacred to be vested in the hands of 2700 venal tyran- 
nical, rebellious bank corporations? The question just resolves it- 



118 

self into the one : "Who shall issue and control the volume of the 
national currency, paper and metallic?" If the question were left to 
the constitution, and the Supreme Court of the United States as ex- 
pounder of it, it would be no question. It is as plainly answered 
by both as the questions who shall "borrow mouey on the credit of 
the United States;" who shall "levy taxes and duties on imports;" who 
shall declare war, make treaties andpe t oe? But an answer that does not 
suit the despotic purposes of this spirit of absolutism, never was final 
to it, no matter what the authority ; it lives and thrives outside the 
pale of legitimate constitutional restraint; bring it under it, that 
moment it dies. The issue is made sharp and decisive. It or the con- 
stitution and civil liberty must die; they cannot live and thrive togeth- 
er; "ye cannot serve two masters;" ye will hate; the one and cleave 
to the other. The people have to "choose this day whom they will 
serve." The constitution and liberty under constitutional and legal 
restraints; or the absolute unbounded control of this alien system 
of eternal peonage under a perpetual national debt and eternally 
borrowed bank currency. This system well knows it is your mas- 
ter. In a fit of anger, it did not hesitate to threaten to precipitate 
in 1880 as revenge for the passage of the three per cent refunding 
bill, one per cent interest lower than it demanded the rate should be, 
a panic upon the country like "Black Friday" and 1873. This cor- 
don of crime and treason then said to the country, you will not 
obey our demands? We will show you. And under the law as 
then and now, they commenced to surrender their circulation to con- 
trol the currency of the country to create a panic to drive the peo- 
ple and Congress into submission and obedience And they would 
have succeeded only that the Secretary of the treasury violated the 
law (perhaps pardonable in that instance) in coming with the Uni- 
ted States Treasury to the relief of the business of the country. 
Who "shall coin money and regulate the value thereof" the Con- 
gress or the banks? 

If there were no constitution that still outside of the United 
States Senate and Executive Departments has some claims and hold 
upon the people there yet would be the question of utility and poli- 
cy left This question of what kind and how much legal tender 
money, paper and metahc, shall be in actual circulation among the 
people at any given time, stares the American people in the face 
with or without the constitution. It is a question that crawls right 
into your chimney corners, upon your hearth stones into the larder, 
yes, right upon the family board. From 1868 to 1873 a contraction of 
$35.00 per capita, that is from $48 to $13 shrank the price and 
market value of every production twice as fast as all the labor of 
the country could produce. Out ot four head of beef cattle, the 
farmer raised three for the bondholding, money loaning, money 
manipulating class and divided the fourth with himself and t lie cor- 
porations who owned and controlled the transportation. And all 
other business except that of loaning or speculating in obligations 
payable in money, a scarce and dear dollar in the same ratio. From 



119 

1809 to 1879 no legitimate business flourished in the United States, 
while the anglicised conspiracy were robbing the people of their 
money "to effect resumption." But the occupation of the usurer, 
the salmon and bawdy house keeper, were in an especially flourish- 
ing condition. The bankrupt courts and lunatic asylums were full ; 
8,000 bankruptcies in 1877 against 600 in 1865 ; suicides and insan- 
ity increased in the same ratio. But that was no matter, we were 
contracting the currency, distressing, robbing the people, driving 
them into bankruptcy, suicide and insanity, destroying homes and 
driving innocent girls into prostitution to effect a change of legal 
tender notes for national bank notes, called for euphony "resump- 
tion ;" so that the thieving scoundrels who wrought this treason 
caused all this havoc, panic, moral and financial destruction, might 
reap $74,500,000 annually out of the sweat, blood, toil and tears of 
the American people ; that was all. 

Who shall issue and control the volume of the nation's curren- 
cy, paper and metalic? Some one must, some one will; it is for 
the people to say who shall. Shall it be "the Congress," as declar- 
ed by the constitution, or the banks as declared by the executive de- 
partment and the Senate? 

The Congress, a body of about four hundred men chosen by 
and responsible to the people who take an oath to support the con- 
stitution and laws of the country? 

That is the body designated by the constitution to hold and ex- 
ercise this power, too great and sacred to be confided or left even 
with the States. 

The other body is 2700 national bank associations owned and 
controlled by not less than 13,50< » stockholders who are "elected?" 
by themselves; who are "responsible ?" to no one but themselves as 
to the "volume" of bank currency they will issue at any given time 
by loaning it to the people ; a class of usurers, who, in all ages, 
climes and conditions, have always been without patriotism, human 
sympathy or any of the amenities of mankind ; and who have prov- 
ed in the last twenty years in this country that the class who own, 
control and manipulate this system are the unworthy sons of their 
sires of all ages. Brought to a sharp issue and statement of the 
matters of difference between them and the legal tender treasury 
notes, it is this : Legal tender paper currency coined and issued 
by the government paying it out to the people, is illegal and uncon- 
stitutional. 

Legal tender bank notes (for some purposes) coined by the gov- 
ernment and given to them to issue by loaning to the people is con- 
stitutional and legal. The question of the constitutionality of a pa- 
per currency with them, therefore, turns upon the point whether it 
is given to them by government to emit to the people by loaning it. 
The logic of the conspirators is as follows, and as certain in a civil- 
ized community as death and taxes : 1. Contracting the volume of 
the currency makes money scarce; 2, to make money scarce is to 
make money dear, enhance its buying power ; 3, to make money 



120 

dear is to make wages and all kinds of property but obligations pay- 
able in mone}^ cheap in the same ratio. Their conspiracy has two 
great objects always directly in view. First, to reduce the volume 
of the circulating currency of the country, paper and metallic, to 
the lowest sum possible per capita. Second, to as nearly as possi- 
ble own and have the absolute control of that minimum volume. It 
will be seen there is a two-fold motive to reduce the volume to the 
minimum and make gold the only "legal tender for debt," as claim- 
ed for in the legal tender decision. First, as therein pointed out, 
"a large per centage is added to every debt, and such must be the 
demand, for gold to satisfy contracts that ruinous sacrifices, general 
distress and general bankruptcy may be expected." The people owe 
the debts to which the great percentage is added ; the gold and 
mone}' gamblers, bondholders and bankers own the gold and the 
debts and the "general distress and bankruptcy" of the people, 
adds in same ratio to their wealth as it did fifty per cent in five 
years from 1872 to 1877. Second, the smaller the volume the num- 
ber of dollars the more perfectly can they handle and control it. 
Scarce money means dear money, dear money means cheap proper- 
ty, cheap property means cheap human wages, flesh, brains and blood. 
Suppose a man owned a $1,000 six per cent bond in 1865 when 
there were $48.00 per capita in circulation and wages $2.50 per day ; 
the interest on the bond is $60.00 per annum and it would take 24 
days' labor to pay the annual interest. But in 1874 with only $13.00 
per capita tn circulation wages were not more than $1.00 per day, if 
that; and it took 60 days' labor to pay the annual interest. And 
with the circulation at $13.00 per capita three per cent on the bond 
is a higher rate of interest and requires more clays' labor to pay it 
than six per cent is when the per capita circulation is $48.00. For 
then as we have seen it only takes 24 day's labor to pay the annual 
interest; but with the $13.00 circulation and $1.00 per day it 
takes 30 days to pay the $30.00 annual interest at three per cent. 
And it is all the same when the interest or principal of the debt i"» 
paid in the products of labor. It would take 40<l days' labor or its 
products to pay the principal of the bond in 1865 ; it would 
take 1000 days' labor or its products to pay the bondin 1S74-5-6-7-8. 
Cannot a blind man see the motive of these conspirators to control 
the currency, to enhance the value of their currency, their notes, 
bonds and gold? Again suppose a man owes a note of $10< and 
has twenty cattle worth fifty dollars each, to pay it; they are worth 
the debt but they are not a legal tender for it. He must turn them 
into legal tender money and bring it to pay his note, if the holder 
demands it. He turns out to raise the money, but legal tender 
notes or money is scarce, hard to find ; it is dear. Then suppose 
when he does find it, the man to whom he owes the note says to the 
one who has the money we have that fellow in close quarters ; my 
note is due, I will demand the legal tender money, will have nothing 
else. You say to him, well money is very scarce, getting scarcer all 
the time. Property is at a drag, a discount; I don't want your 



121 

property. And they thus collude to oppress and do oppress the 
num. If he does not take the price offered by the man who owns 
and controls the money, the other will get judgment and sell his 
property at sheriff's sale. And he must offer at $40, $35 — yes, 
down to $25 per head or as low as their devilish cupidity and his 
necessit}' leads them. That is the conspiracy played by the less than 
a million of gold bank bondholders, usurers and thieves on the oth- 
er forty-nine millions in this country for the last twenty years, and 
yet the great American people are as gentle, docile and defenceless 
as the twenty oxen in our illustration ; gaze at their masters' bank 
doors and listen to their "hard money," "honest money," "re- 
sumption" drivel with the stolidity of the ox at his master's crib. 
The point of distinction is that money is property, but all property 
is not money. And when one class own the volume of the legal ten- 
der money and the debts of the country and another class owe the 
debts and own the property, other than money, the second class are 
at the mercy of the first. By this alien management of our nation- 
al finance, the debt contracted in the war to free 3,000,000 of black 
chattel slaves is to be made the means when perpetrated of reducing 
to serfdom 45,000,000 of black and white as wage slaves. These 
observations are not the vaporings of an overheated imagination ; 
you may see for yourself that each one is based on a foundation of 
fact. It is earnestly desired Americans shall comprehend the fact, 
we have departed from an American, a Republican system of fin- 
ance and have gone back to a Bourbon, Monarchial one, that if en- 
forced, as is still sought and contended for by the executive depart- 
ment and the United States Senate, bastardizes or annihilates the 
fact of our National Sovereignty. Our system has been imported 
ami the national banks copied off of the Bank of England based 
upon a perpetual national debt. 

That banking system is as distinctively an English political in- 
stitution as the peerage, house of lords, or royalty itself. I want 
the Americans who have any of the metal of the old Revolutionary 
fathers left in them to understand this. It is as English as the 
"stamp" act, or any other of the money-making "acts" of 1775 and 
befere, passed for mone}^-making purposes and to destroj' the idea 
of American nationality and sovereignty. It is copied almost ver- 
batim from the Bank of England. It is the avowed purpose of the 
National Bankers' Association to "perfect it after that model." 

The Bank of England was organized as a "war necessity" in 
1694. Its capital then consisted of a permanent loan to the Gov- 
ernment of £1,200,000 sterling, to enable William and Mary to carry 
on war with France and make widows and orphans. On this loan 
the stockholders were to receive 8 per cent, per annum, and be per- 
mitted to issue notes based on bonds of the Government to repre- 
sent the loan, and loan the notes so issued to the people. One debt, 
you see — the bank-note — based upon and redeemable in another — 
the bond. But, to make it sound better and "inspire 



122 

more confidence,'' the Jewish usurers and English aristocracy 
call it "honest money" — currency "based upon and redeemable in 
coin." 

You can see at a glance that the stockholders in that bank have 
a double profit upon the money invested in the "permanent loan" — 
one in the interest on the bonds loaned to the people and one in the 
interest on the bank notes. That transaction, with the various im- 
provements to it devised by the usurers and bond and bank mongers 
and the aristocracy of England, was and is the substructure and 
foundation of the Bank of England and the English system of finance 
of to-day. Of course the eye of the usurer saw the double interest. 
There he could get his "two pounds of flesh" according to law. But 
to insure that to last him and his children's children after him, that 
bond and national debt must be made perpetual. The masses of 
the people must be mortgaged to government in trust for him, to all 
eternity, under a national debt. And if the "managers" and stock- 
holders could only have the "management of the public debt," they 
would soon "manage" to make it perpetual. Do you suppose any 
intelligent, Christian government would ever confide such a trust 
into the hands of such a set of civilized vandals? Of course it would 
when the government and the governing class are in sympathy with 
them. And in due time, by act of Parliament, the bank and its 
"managers" were entrusted with the "management of the public 
debt." 

How would we expect the debt and bank to prosper under such 
"management?" They have done — well, just as we expected. The 
debt continued to grow until it was as large as they wanted it — that 
is, so large that there was no hope left of ever paying anything but 
interest on it. And the bank grew with its growth and strengthen- 
ed with its strength. The rich have grown and still are growing, 
richer, and the poor — God's poor — are staying — if they can pay 
rent. The usurers and aristocrats, the snobs and royal hangers-on 
and drones in three hundred families and their relations, own half 
the land and wealth. John Bull has "confidence'' in the bank, and 
the bank has ••perfect confidence" in John Bull. Government has 
paid this bank in one year, for its arduous duties in managing to 
make the public debt perpetual, the sum of $465,000. And this is 
English "finance," "honest money" and "resumption" in bloom, of 
which our political apostates have prated to Americans for the last 
sixteen years. 

This bank literally feeds and fattens on the wars, woes, blood 
and tears of the nation. As we have said, in 1694 its capital was 
£1,200,000. But, in the wars with Germany, Bavaria, and under 
Anne until 1708, it grew to £4,500,000, and by means of the wars 
of the Allies and George I, it was enabled to again double its capi- 
tal ; so that in 1722 it was £8,95^,000 sterling. And from that time 
until 1746 — a period of comparative peace — it was only enabled to 
increase its debt capital to £10,778.000 ; but from that time until 
1816 — period covering England's efforts to crush Napoleon I. and us 



123 

in oar war for independence — it was enabled to swell its national debt 
capital to £14,553,000, or in United States denominations, about 
$72,765,000. Thus it is, figuratively, a "pyramid of skulls, "amon- 
ument of the nation's woes. War, shedding the blood and leaving 
the bones of England's sons to enrich foreign fields, is a fruitful 
source of income to the bank. Wars create national debts, and 
national debts increase the bank capital. On that capital the mana- 
gers and bondholders reap their untaxed double profits. "A rich 
man's war and a poor man's fight" may be hard on the common 
people, the rank and file, but no matter; it makes the ducats chink 
in the bank and usurer's vaults. No matter if each one is stained 
with the blood of a father, husband, son or brother, or the tears of 
a mother, wife, children or sister ; no matter. The London Times, 
the New York Herald and World, and their allies all over this coun- 
try, will sound the praises of "resumption," "honest money" and 
English finance. 

Thus has this bank grown to be a "power behind the throne 
greater than the throne itself." The English people can as easily 
pay their perpetual national debt in a day and abolish the peerage, 
House of Lords, or royalty itself, as to abolish this bank. It is the 
foundation stone of the whole superstructure of oppression. Read 
the history of this hell-born monopyly, and you will see that the 
House of Lords, the aristocratic class, the landlords', the crown and 
the governing class have favored all its encroachments, and that the 
common, the middle and lower classes— the brain and heart of the 
nation — have opposed them. The nobility favored it ; the ability of 
the country opposed it. 

Now, let us trace the analogy between this system of national 
banks and the bank of England, and see if we can find any paternal 
marks of John Bull upon it : 

1. The capital of both is the national debt and bonds. 

2. That capital is untaxed and draws interest. 

3. Both issue notes based on that capital to loan to the 
people. 

4. Both propose to "redeem" one debt with another, and both 
call that "specie basis," "honest money" and "finance." 

5. Both reap two incomes on the same capital at the same time. 

6. Both depend upon the existence of a perpetual national debt 
to exist. 

7. Each wants to perpetuate the debt of the country in which 
it is. 

8. Both were instituted as "war necessity.'' Both depend on 
war and bloodshed to exist. 

Nothing but war can create national debts. A succession of 
wars is the only way to prevent the payment of public debts in a 
civilized country. It is "the best banking system the world ever 
saw" for the three hundred aristocratic families of England and our 
poor, pitiful, purse-proud, shallow, shoddy, aristocratic apes and 
flunkies. 



124 

It makes no difference as to the 40,000,000 common people — the 
"dumb, driven cattle." John and the three hundred congratulate our 
shallow-pated aristocracy upon our banking system, and they in 
turn congratulate John and the three hundred that they "have 
established their finance on so firm a basis." They have organized 
a regular mutual admiration society. 

Can any man not a misanthrope, a hater of his race — contem- 
plate the facts and cruelty contained in the idea of a "perpetual na- 
tional debt" without feelings of revolt? The masses of the English 
people, or of this country, chattel mortgaged — they and their chil- 
dren, and their children's children after them, to all eternity — to a 
few privileged persons who are thus enabled to "eat their bread in 
the sweat" of other men's faces from generation to generation. 
Such is English finance to to-day. A bank currency based on bonds 
that represent a debt, English statesmen admit, is so great it can 
never be paid. Indeed, the landlords and the titled aristocracy ar- 
gue that it never should be paid — that it is "a great national bless- 
ing." 

The pilfering class of bank apostates in this country have hesi- 
tated as yet to announce the English doctrine in all its length and 
breadth. They have feared that the public mind of this country 
was not as yet sufficiently besotted, and the old "spirit of 177G" 
sufficiently perverted, to not enter a vigorous protest to it. Never- 
theless they have worked to that end for the prevention of the pay- 
ment and the perpetuation of our debt. All "hard, honest money" 
cant and their "resumption" fraud they learned at the feet and 
knees of the English taskmasters and landlord robbers of Labor. 

For a series of years, prior to 1818 the Bank of England had 
issued a vast volume of paper money, beyond its ability to redeem 
on call in either "bonds or coin." But the people did not care — 
were in ignorance of it — and its notes passed among them for and 
as money, and the masses of the common people then enjoyed such 
a period of prosperity as they had never before or since seen. 
They were outstripping and breaking away from the leading strings 
of the aristocratic snobs, taskmasters and usurers who had held 
them in subjection. The lords and usurers saw it, and saw also that 
they must snatch and steal that money out of their hands to again 
reduce them to subjection. Accordingly, they passed a law in 1818 
declaring that five years hence — in LS23 — "the Bank of England 
should resume specie payments." A contraction of the currency 
was then commenced by the bank withdrawing and burning its 
notes which had been issued and put into circulation, and for twen- 
ty years after that process commenced the small land owners and 
property-holders of the country were decimated each five years ; 
that is, in twenty years 40 per cent of the people lost their homes. 
This is a matter of history. The country was filled with a wail of 
sorrow from the bread-winners; the land was filled with "tramps" and 
"bread riots," and the militia was called out to shoot or ride down 
and dragoon women and children in the streets for crving for 



125 

bread. But the bank "resumed specie payments ;" that is, a cur- 
rency based upon and redeemable in a rag bond. The aristocracy 
and usurers reduced the poor — the breadwinners — to their "normal 
condition of dependence.' 1 They demonstrated that it was "cheap- 
er to control Labor by controlling the volume of the currency than 
to own it." They made money scarce and dear, and wages and 
property — the products of labor — plenty and damnably cheap. Yes, 
they iuade the masses of the people — the bread-winners — human 
flesh, brains and blood — plenty and most damnably cheap, and it 
has been so ever since. Indeed, there was such an "overproduc- 
tion" of men, women and children in Ireland that the poor, dear 
landlords were compelled to undertake the enterprise of "empty- 
ing Ireland of Irishmen." And this, is the "Scheme and Charter" 
they and their boon companions have transported and propose to 
transplant in the virgin soil of the World's Republic. 

In 1869 and 1870 they said among themselves : John Bull and 
his aristocracy subdued and robbed Labor, multiplied the value of 
money and bonds and money obligations by two by "resumption" 
— that is, "contraction of the volume of the currency" from 1818 
to 1823, and we will follow their example. He passed a law in 1818 
declaring that he would "resume specie payments" five years after 
by stealing the people's monej' out of their hands. We must do 
the same ! So they dictated one called a "Resumption Act." Our 
anglicized bank Tories passed one in 1875 declaring they would re- 
sume in four years — 1879. As we have seen, they carried out only 
one-half the purpose and intent of the hell-born "scheme." But it 
would seem that the result was all his Satanic Majesty, or the land- 
lords of Ireland, or the English bank and bond aristocracy could 
desire. It multiplied the value of money and bonds by two, and 
divided the value of wages and other property by the same factor. 
In the campaign of 1880 the Republican party published the record 
of the county of W m. H. English, President of a national bank and can- 
didate for Vice-President of the United States on the Democratic 
ticket showing that in the years 1874-5 he bought at tax and fore- 
closure sales nearly 800 different pieces of landed property at an 
aggregate loss of about $200,000 to the poor men who had owned 
them, and below the assessed value, that being abont one-half. If 
one man in one county did that in two years, what was done all over 
the United States when men like English were plying their vocation 
at every county seat and cross-roads from 1875 to 1879? It is an 
appalling thought. How many "lost cottage homes?" How many 
broken homes and hearts, sighs and tears, bankruptcies and sui- 
cides? How many tender wives and young daughters turned in the 
streets to have blackmail levied on their virtue? Then, for the first 
time in the history oj this country, there came an army of a million 
trcmps — 1877 — and while they were enforcing the "resumption" 
act, two million men were out of emyloyment. 

Under its kindly incubation it hatched out the Goulds, Van- 



126 

derbilts and 3,000 other millionaires at one end of the line and a mil- 
lion tramps, lost homes, bankruptcy, suicide, poverty and disaster 
at the other. 

In 1840 it was estimated that there were only two millionaires 
in the United States ; now there are 3,500. Nearly all have been 
hatched since our anglicized statesmen have imported and trans- 
planted the English monarchial perpetual national debt s} T stem of 
finance. 

In England where the fact of sovereignty of the nation resides 
in the "crown;" where they have a government of the crown and 
aristocracy by the crown and aristocracy for the crown and aristoc- 
racy ; where the prerogatives of the crown are only "checked," by 
some constitutional barriers, erected by force, the crown might very 
well delegate the attribute of national sovereignty vested by our 
constitution in "the Congress," that is "to coin money and regu- 
late the value thereof," to the Bank of England and with perfect 
propriety. Indeed it is just what we would expect ; it is a "military 
necessity" to enable the crown and aristocracy to keep the people 
in subjection ; and to sustain a system of church and state little bet- 
eer than the serfdom of the middle ages ; and that only in the 
means used to accomplish the imposition of the royal and aristo- 
cratic burden. Then it was done by coarse brute force of the club 
and sword ; now by the polite relined methods of the usurer and 
unjust law. But the power or authority to delegate to a corpora- 
tion that one of the noblest and most sacred attributes of the sover- 
eignty of a civilized government; the one the fathers thought too sa- 
cred to even leave or confide to the States, does not appertain to or 
reside in our form of government. The Sultan of Turkey and 
Khedive of Egypt farm out the collection of their national revenue 
to "tax-gatherers" by contract, and we call it barbarous. But we 
Americans sit idly by while a kindred function and attribute of the 
sovereignty of our government ; one just as sacred to any civilized 
people, one named in the same section in the same form of words 
in the constitution; namely: "The Congress shall have power" "to 
coin money, regulate the value thereof," "to levy and collect taxes 
and duties on imports ;" we sit idly by while the former of these 
noble functions and attributes of our sovereignty is farmed out and 
prostituted to the tyrannical purposes of an alien English banking 
system ; it is permitted to own and control the volume of nearly one 
half of the paper currency of the country. It subverts the very 
fundamental idea and theory of our government ; the very idea and 
theory that makes our republic different from and greater than the 
driveling so-called constitutional monarchy ; the very principles for 
which our fathers shed their blood on the fields of the revolutionary 
war "that all just government is from the consent of the governed" and 
not from the consent of the crown. 

The crown may have authority, has at any rate for near 300 
years consented away this attribute of the government of the En- 
glish people to the Bank of England ; but in our constitution such 



127 

consent is negatived. An Englishman is a subject ; we are citizens. 
The meaning of "subject" is cast or lying under ; the Englishman 
is cast or lies under the crown ; we lie under no one. Is it not hu- 
miliating to Americans that in so important a matter as our national 
finances we are apes and puppets? and that of a system diametri- 
cally opposed to both the letter and spirit of our constitution? We 
follow with abject docility in this matter in the track of a govern- 
ment, that has filled the earth with blood and tears ; that wherever 
it lias gone has established the improved feudal system of perpet- 
ual usury drawing debt, the new polite refined system of wage 
slavery?" 

An examination of the statements of the public debt of Eng- 
land will show it has increased the bank debt capital but little in 
fifty years ; that for the first eighty years after chartering the Bank 
of England, it managed to double the public debt about each twenty 
years until 181(5. It was then as large as the bank and rusuers 
wanted it ; that is so large there was no hope of paying anything 
but the interest. And we may rest assured our national banking 
system will never rest until one or the other of two things transpire 
in our financial system. Either, that they and our public debt are 
wiped out of existence ; or our debt is put on a basis to make them 
and it perpetual. 

It never has once yielded a point ; that influence never was 
known to do it in any age or country ; it is like a cancer in its na- 
ture ; it will eat until it is cured by its annihilation or until the 
death of the body on which it preys. Since England and her sys- 
tem of finance presents the ''model" for our banking system, I beg 
leave to present some propositions for the reflection of the thought- 
ful mind upon it. 

1. If the rapid growth of the public debt of England prior to 
1816, was an actual necessity growing out of the nature of things 
and connected with the destiny of the country what was the change 
in the conditions that took place and arrested its growth at that 
time ? 

2. If the contraction of that debt was a necessity then since 
the government is now burdened with the payment of interest on a 
debt so large it cannot be paid, whence is to come the assistance in 
the future that will take the place of that given by the contractions 
and expenditures of the debt in the past? 

3. If the government could arrest the contraction of mere debt 
at that period when burdened with interest on one already too large 
to be paid, why could it not, by the use of the same means have pre- 
vented the contraction of any debt in the first instance? 

To these propositions no intelligent answer on the part of the 
advocates of the debt system can be made, only that its contraction 
was one of the unavoidable fates and misfortunes of war. If so, I 
submit again : 

4. What, then, is England going to do in case war comes again, 



128 

as it has in the past, when it is admitted she has strained her credit 
all it will bear to sustain herself until now? 

5. If this is true she is now on the last degree of financial ten- 
sion to sustain the present establishment in time of peace ; what will 
she do if war should come again? Is it true she is only an inflated 
bladder of fraud, force, impudence, debt and deceit? 

7. The candid, thoughtful mind, is driven to one or the other of 
two conclusions: First, that the contraction of the perpetual public 
debt were not one of the unavoidable fates of war, and a necessity 
in the nature of things ; or, Second, if its contraction was such a 
necessity, then a recurrence of the same set of stern facts that occa- 
sioned it will put a period to the present English government audits 
feudal system of perpetual debt finance. 

The advocates of the perpetual debt, Bank of England, and na- 
tional bank system of finance, may take either horn of the dilemma 
they choose ; but one or the other they must. If they choose the 
first, and admit the contraction of the debt was not a necessity in 
the nature of things, in the first instance, then that fact stamps the 
whole system as a false pretense and a. fraud, and as a direct politi- 
cal descendant of the feudal system and its claim of absolute '•pre- 
rogative' 1 as asserted by Charles I and II and Louis XVI and the 
Bourbons of Europe to-day. If they take the second horn of the 
dilemma, that its contraction was one of the unavoidable fates and 
fortunes of war and necessary in the nature of things, then it is ad- 
mitted that the England of to-day is nothing but a bankrupt estab- 
lishment an inflated gas bag of fraud, force, cheek and deceit, and 
only awaits the application of the bayonet in vigorous hands to tap 
it and we have a collapse with nothing left but a bad smell. 

And we as a nation are following in the wake of a painted, pow- 
dered, padded old financial courtegan gone by his prime, on her last 
legs so deeply in debt she can neither get out or in any further; an 
exchequer of perpetual debt, an army of rank and file of foreigners, 
the staff line of incompetent imbeciles, the descendants of effete 
families who for three centuries never ate a crust of bread that was 
earned by the sweat of their own faces ; and all held down by a fat 
old woman, fit figure-head of the aristocracy whose abuses and as- 
sumptions would be borne in no other European country or sover- 
eignty except poor old effete Austria or Spain. Either position is a 
brilliant one to be occupied by Christian men and countries in this 
the last quarter of the nineteenth Christian century. This perpet- 
ual public debt system of finance is a continued menace to the 
peace of Christendom. Public debts so large as to be perpetual 
can only be contracted by war; and after contracted, payment can 
be prevented only by a succession of them. The inducement to 
them we have shown. That the Bank of England is the central 
fact of the financial system and commerce of England and her po- 
litical influence gained thereby is well known and is boasted of by 
Englishmen. Mr. Gladstone, as Minister to England, said not long 



129- 

since England had compelled all English speaking nations to adopt 
her system of finance. She has a patent on the perpetual debt sys- 
tem and compels other nations to pay a royalty on it. The Bank 
of England is omnipotent in her affairs; if its existence depended 
upon a foreign war to contract debt to be its basis, does any man 
doubt its ability or that it would scruple to use its influence to 
cause it? 

Our alien imported system, owning less than one-half the vol- 
ume of our paper currency, in ten years, after 1865. had besieged 
and taken, two of the three departments of our government and 
they were as obedient to do it dictates as the hessians and tories to 
the commands of George III. It passed, or procured to be, the two 
brazen, shameless measures, the "Act to Strengthen the Public 
Credit," and "The Act to Provide for the Resumption of Specie 
Payments;" it had also in 1H73, procured the demonetizing of sil- 
ver and a repeal of nearly all the wholesome restraints upon its 
usurpations. It now has the U. S. Senate and the Presidents and 
his Secretary of the Treasury and Controller of the currency at its 
command. And now in its sore straits to devise ways and means 
how not to pay our national debt; to do away with that troublesome 
"surplus," so as to pay none of it on interest drawing bonds; what 
a relief a war would be to that anglicised alien influence in the Re- 
public. Indeed it would be the next thing to another •'Resump- 
tion'' act It would make way with that "surplus" in fine style. 
Then that influence and class of statesmen would be relieved from 
resort to such measures as the "River and Harbor" bills ; Mr. Blair's 
"Educational Bill" and twenty-one more such expedients of the 
fertile brains of that greedy class who seek to establish the feudal 
system of finance in this country. Yes, a "rich man's war and poor 
man's fight," would take a great strain from the minds of that class 
and the present U. S. Senate. Does not any thinking person see, 
that all else equal, the great influence of that devilish system, will al- 
ways "give in its voice for Avar. ' And when Mr. Garfield's success- 
or assumed the functions of his high office, one of his first official 
acts was to withdraw demands made by Mr. Garfield's Secretary of 
State, upon one of the South American Republics that it recognized 
as a declaration of war. If that policy could have succeeded for 
only one year; if the senseless clamor "On to Peru," could have 
been raised ; and a hundred thousand men called out, that trouble- 
some "surplus" paid out and a thousand millions of dollars or so, 
even less, added to our present debt, do you not see what a relief it 
would have been to that influence? Do you not see its motive to 
stir up war? And for this reason Christendom ought to stamp it out 
of existence. 

The English and American money power to-day can pitch al- 
most any nation it chooses upon the bayonets of any other. And 
it is sure footing for a monied aristocracy- It establishes them with 
all the ease and security over a people of the Barons and Lords of 
feudal svstem over the nations of the middle ages. It has been im- 



130 

ported in this country since our war. Other fields will be as invi- 
ting as our country was. As a system it sprouts and grows in the 
night of war, in its blood, tears and ashes; it feeds and fattens on 
war. It languishes and dies in time of peace; it must b^ watered 
with the blood and tears of the people periodically, to flourish. 

It is anti-Christian and in league with hell. It flies on the 
black wings of the vultures of distrust and war, it famishes and 
sighs in peace for war to come to its relief, so it may glut itself. As 
a system it is making a test of the morality of our Christianity. 

If it can establish the doctrine of the necessity of perpetual 
public debts, to be tliH basis of national currency, issued by tyran- 
nical corporations and classes of usurers, farewell to Christian civil- 
ization. It will have met and surrendered to the same vulture that 
has devoured the vitals of all of the civilizations of the past. It is 
the cancer incurable, its only cure will be the death of the civiliza- 
tion in which it has fastened its poison fibers and tentacles, or its 
own death 

What it lacks in merit it attempts to supply with sophistry, 
ridicule and overaweing the people. 

It boasts it is the inventor of "honest money," "hard money" 
and "Resumption; 1 '' it in fact never invented anything ; it is nothing 
but the feudalism of the middle ages, that lingers in commerce af- 
ter it has been overthrown in the other departments of government. 
For twenty years it clamored in this country for what it calls "hon- 
est money;" "coin and currency based upon and redeemable in coin." 
Asserted the Republic could coin nothing but gold and silver into 
a legal tender money. And so far as practical results aie concern- 
ed, it has not yielded one point although overthrown by the Legal 
Tender Decision in every one We invite the contemplation of the 
candid reader a minute to this "hard" 'honest" money proposition 
as asserted by this system and contended for by the U. S. Senate, 
the executive department of our government and a subsidized ig- 
norant and venal press. It asserts in plain language that legal ten- 
der money in this country can only be stamped upon a metal that 
in intrinsic value is worth one dollar without regard to the fiat of 
law it shall be a dollar to pay debt and the inscriptions and insig- 
nia it bears. And it has contended against and reviled the stand 
ard silver dollar, because it did not contain as many grains of silver 
by 40^, as they claimed it should to make the silver dollar equal in 
intrinsic value with the gold dollar. 

The late Secretary Manning in his Report to Congress, ' Fi- 
nance Report 1885" from 16 to page 34 of it nearly half of it, 
wrestles to show the standard dollar, as now coined was in fact 
only worth about 86 cents 

And lie writes of "mono and bi-metali rn" with all the profund- 
ity and alacrity of the "Governor" of the Bank of England and a 
direct polit cal descendant of Charles I. But follow him through 
it all and he concludes the whole matter by saying it would not even 
remedy the matter to add the minus grains of silver to its weight; the 



131 

only remedy is to suspend entirely the coinage of silver. For thus 
demanded his bank masters. The truth is this class of men in fact 
do not care of what the legal tender money of the Republic is coin- 
ed whether the dollar has a greater or a less number of grains in it, 
if they can only own and control the volume of it. 

That is the point to their contention ; that is the secret of their 
opposition to the legal tender treasury note and silver coinage. But 
think of the proposition that the republic can make nothing but gold 
and silver (in fact they contend for gold alone) a legal tender for 
debt, and that all currency must be based upon and redeemable in 
such coin." 

What does the man say who asserts such a proposition? You 
offer him a legal tender treasury five dollar note ; you say to him, 
that fragile piece of paper carries on its face the pledge of all the 
honor, property, patriotism, and the faith of the American people in 
their constitution, institutions, laws and flag, that it shall be good 
for five dollars in value, in the world of commerce for any and every 
obligation. He says you cannot prove that your propert^y or patri- 
otism, your consthution, institutions or flag will be here in five years ; 
or if you are all here, that you or any of you will have any "honor" 
or desire to fulfill your "promise." Go to with your "empty prom- 
ise to pay." 

I demand an "honest," "hard" dollar that is worth a dollar, 
whether you, your constitution or flag are here; or if you are, 
whether you have any "honor" left or not; I won't trust any or all 
of you ; I have no confidence in any or all of you ; your "empty 
promise to pay" is as filthy rags in my sight ; go to, with your "rag 
baby." I demand a "hostage" of you for my five dollars. I de- 
mand a hard dollar laid right here in my palm ; one that has now 
actually cost live pounds of human flesh, sweat, blood and tears in 
five days actual human toil. Fools may feed on faith, trust and 
confidence. I believe in to-day's fact alone, never in to-morrow's 
promise. I do not pinch or taste any actual human flesh or blood 
in your "empty promise to pay ;" and he might go further and .say 
it is too cheap to the people ; it has not the taint of usury upon it. 
I and my class do not get ten per cent, per annum for it for every 
day it remains outside a bank counter, as we do on our national 
bank note. But if it had the taste of fresh human sweat, stained 
afresh with usury each day it might do even if it is made of paper. 

This does not overstate the position of that class of men. And 
hypocrites behind the pulpits and on the platforms have used all the 
terms at their command to ridicule and destroy the impersonation of 
the peoples' faith in God and man, in their flag and constitution, 
and in the legal tender treasury note. 

Talk of infiidelity ! The doctrine is the basest ever taught in 
the world, and for the basest purpose that ever actuated a Judas. 
Taught by a tyrannical class of one million to manacle the lives 
and liberty of forty-nine millions of freemen. 



132 

Such sentiments ought to drive man beyond the pales of civili- 
zation, if he will persist in an attempt to enforce them. 

Faith, trust and confidence are the ''chief corner stones," the 
"head of the corner," and the "key-stone" of the arch of the 
republic. Faith, trust and confidence were our only stock in store ; 
it was the fortress of our strength, the depot of our supplies ; it fed 
and clothed, armed and equipped our army and nerved the arms of 
Washington and his compeers in the war of our revolution to gain 
our independence against the "hard mone}^," "honest mone}'," per- 
petual public debt men, under the command of George III. 
Faith in God, trust and confidence in men, sustained Washington's 
soul in the dark and trying hours of "Valley Forge." 

When the patriots of the North and South were unable to com- 
municate once in three months, mutual faith and confidence in each 
other nerved the arms and hearts of each to believe and feel and 
know the patriots of each section are dealing the tyrant sturdy, telling 
blows. God rules and we will fight it out on this line if it takes seven 
years. And they did — and the God of hosts and of battles crowned 
their mutual faith, confidence and trust, with the greatest political 
fact of the Christian Era — "Yorktown." All the ' hard money," 
"honest money," perpetual public debt and resumption gentlemen, 
including the late Benedict Arnold, were with Mr. Cornwallis and on 
his side of the intrenchments that day. 

Their mission with the bayonet and cannon to convert the 
republic to "honest," "hard," money, at least to a perpetual public 
debt, entirely failed. It always would pay, in time of peace, the 
unavoidable debts of war. But in 1861 the republic was rent asunder 
with the slave-holder's rebellion. The "hard money" men of Eu- 
rope rubbed their hands in great glee and said, "The great bubble 
of American liberty has burst at last." — Earl Russell as correspond- 
ent to the London Time*. 

They made haste to "recognize" the "confederacy ;"' they 
could not "take C. S. A. bonds" fast enough, in pay for "priva- 
teers," to prey on our commerce, and for ammunition and arms. 

Her "royal highness?" Empress of India, Queen of England, 
Godmother of Ireland and Stepmother of Canada and Queen of Da- 
hominy, and that relic of the fifteenth century, Francis -Joseph, Em- 
peror of Austria, by the grace of the bayonet and Napoleon III. 

met in sweet council and said this is a very good time to veto the 
"Monroe Doctrine." 

True the United States have a treaty with Mexico "offensive 
and defensive," but the U. S. are now divided and lighting among 
themselves, and cannot more than help themselves, if that. Send a 
French army to Mexico, subdue her, and put the reminiscence of the 
fifteenth century and bourbonism, Maximillian, on the throne of 
Mexico. 

Well — then, we will be ready to watch the light from a point 
near enough the "great bubble'' to help burst it, if it does not 



-—133 

prove able to burst itself. In the meantime, "hard money" men 
and tories were all engaged in the money loaning and usury busi- 
ness in this country and also delighted at the prospect. Our finan- 
cial crisis came on in 18G2 ; the dark cloud of war and debt seemed 
to shut out the last ray of hope. A bankrupt treasury, credit gone, 
honest money banks all suspended; an unclothed, unfed, unpaid, 
discouraged army in the field ; their families in actual want at home; 
it was indeed the second "Valley Eorge" of the republic. The fol- 
lowing statement of our situation at that time is made by Justice 
Strong in the Legal Tender Decision. The requisitions from the 
war and navy department for supplies exceeded fifty millions, and 
the current expenditure was over one million per day. The entire 
amount of coin in the country, including that in private hands, as 
well as that in banking institutions, was insufficient to supply the 
need of the government three months, had it all been poured into 
the treasury. Foreign credit we had none. (No, indeed, financial 
and political Bourbonism saw to that). We say nothing of the 
overhanging paralysis of trade and of business generally, which 
threatened loss of confidence in the ability of government to main- 
tain its continued existence and therewith the complete destruction 
of the remaining national credit.'' Patriots saw it and trembled; 
the slaveholder's rebellion saw it, took new courage, and the "hard 
money," "honest money" tories and Bourbons of all Europe rubbed 
their hands in glee at the prospect. Napoleon and his minions beat 
poor Mexico to the earth in the sight of her trembling sister and 
ravished her of her political rights. Bourbonism of the fifteenth 
century, reared its deformed head and the "Empress of India" and 
her delectable ministry bade it God speed in its mission in the New 
World; if the republic can and will beat itself to pieces, or with our 
help, then will the world go back three centuries ; and we will not 
only have the absolutism of feudalism and Bourbonism in finance, 
but actually perhaps rcrrrse Yorlctown ; who knows? Yea, and who 
did know? Thus reasoned these crones of the past. Who can see 
or decipher now, what might have been the consequences if the C. 
S. A. had acquired their independence? Bourbon Europe united 
with Mexico for a military and political camp-ground ; we bit- 
terly disunited, the C. S. A. more and more haughty and embittered, 
ready perhaps for unholy alliances ; yea, who can forsee? But for 
one great fact, the union armies would not have been maintained in 
the field, until the end of 1863. It was a very "Valley Forge." 
Bourbonism in this country and Europe saw it. 

Secretary Chase came forward with the measure that saved the 
world's republic. He said, the Revolutionary Fathers, when they 
had little else, coined their faith, trust, confidence, their mutual 
pledges of "sacred honor" and patriotism, into the "continental 
currency'' and lived and fought for, and by the Grace of God and 
the help of the French drove the "hard money" men out of this 
country in 1776 and 1782. Come now, let us coin the mutual con- 
fidence, faith, trust, honor and patriotism of the Great American 



134 

Republic into legal tender treasury notes and pay our army and 
fight our battles and save the Republic on it as money. To every 
patriot, it was like the sun, come from behind a dark eclipse ; to the 
slaveholder's rebellion it was the crack of doom. To Bourbonism 
in Europe and this country it was like "Austerlitz" or "Sodowa" 
to its plans. And the wage slaveholder of Europe and the chattel 
slaveholder of America made common cause. With the hard mon- 
ey men of both Europe and America the cry was, "To your tents, 
Oh, Israel." The republic is about to coin her own mutual faith, 
confidence, trust, patriotism, her own resources into money to save 
herself, her integrity, and if we do not lay to a helping hand the 
great bubble of American liberty will not burst at last." 

And the financial Bourbonism of Europe and this continent 
marched right into the household of the Republic at its most un- 
guarded and accessible point, the U. S. Senate. Here it entrenched 
itself to defeat if possible the legal tender acts entirely; that done at that 
time was overthrow, at least division of the Republic. If the acts 
could not be defeated entirely the next point was to defeat the legal 
tender clause and quality of them ; that put the republic on its 
knees at the doors of the gold gamblers of Europe and America. — ■ 
If the entire legal tender quality could not be defeated, then get 
as many "exceptions" as possible in it. The Grand Old Commoner, 
Thadeus Stephens could carry the legal tender act without one blot 
or stain of the blood and tears of the common people in the Bour- 
bon dictated "exceptions'' upon it through the House. Time and 
again he sent the bill to the "last ditch" of financial Bourbonism, 
the U. S. Senate with their cruel "exceptions" struck out. Time 
and again it returned the bill to him and the House, with the two 
blood and tear-stained "exceptions" "except for duties on imports 
and interest on the public debt." And as much as to say. we, the 
agents and attorneys of the gold gamblers of Europe and America ; 
we, the tools of financial Bourbonism, will sit here in dead-lock with 
you until your armies are unfed, unclothed and beaten in the field 
and come home unpaid to their families in want, with the flag trail- 
ing in the dust, the republic divided, a Bourbon on the throne of 
Mexico, threatening and insulting it. 

And there they stood, and in shame and sorrow, the patriots 
were compelled to yield to their bloody and greedy demands. For 
those two exceptions doubled the cost of the war in premium on 
gold and thus doubled the public debt. It pensioned the tories. 

Thus, in two instances, has the existence of the Republic de- 
pended upon its right and power to coin its own faith, credit, confi- 
dence and trust, into money. But this class of financiers call 
it filthy rags and "rag baby. ' But their "rag" bank note currency 
based upon and redeemable in a "rag" bond, made and issued by 
the government is good, honest, hard money. But silver certificates 
based on standard dollars is not "currency based upon and redeem- 
able in coin?" Why? You ask, and it takes twenty five pages of 
argument by a bank attorney as Secretarv of the U. S. Treasury to 



135 

tell you. The only reason they ever were able to assign, was, it 
has not silver grains enough by forty. 

And then to add them to it, will not make the matter any bet- 
ter, for it drives "gold" out of the country. 

Gold is the banker's scarce and dear money ; legal tender notes 
and silver certificates are the people's common money, on which 
they pay no usury to the usurers. That is the real objection, but it 
would not do to state it plainly. 

If these men really do contend for "coin and currency based 
upon and redeemable in coin," why do they light to the death the 
coinage of the standard dollar, at the rate of $2,000,1 00 per month, 
and the legal tender notes? 

The truth is, it is alia false pretense; it is all to cover the 
real purpose, to clear the field of both species of the people's money 
for the occupation of bank notes. 

Think one moment of the tax upon our country, of either spe- 
cies of curreny, as. a fixed fact for the future, the "coin" or the bank 
note currency, or both. We now have a population of over 50,000,- 
000 and increasing rapidly. This system has, since 1870, strangled 
us down to less than $15.00 per capita and almost panic prices. 
Even England and France (especially the latter) both old and im- 
proved countries where wages are low, that do not need more than 
half we do, maintain a money volume of $20 per capita for their 
people. 

In view of our rapidly increasing population, we must have at 
least $20 per capita soon for our present population; that is a vol- 
ume of 2J>1,000, 000, 0(10 of currency. If it is to be bank currency, 
we must perpetuate, at least that amount of principal U. S. bonds, 
at three per cent, per annum, untaxed, as good as two per 
cent, more and making five per cant, in all, an annual charge of 
$50,0' 0,000 ; the bank notes, at seven per cent simple interest, will 
cost $70,0:30,000 more, or a total per annum charge of $120,000,(100 
paid for the right to live. This sum would support a standing army 
of 400,000 men at a cost of $3U0 per annum per man. Or. suppose 
in fact we do have "a currency based upon and redeemable in coin ;" 
have a metal dollar to actually circulate, or to be basis and lie in 
the treasury, to "redeem" the certificate based on it. 

If we use the coin, the statistics of the mintage of this and 
other countries show, that coin in actual circulation is clipped, worn 
out and lost, as such, in thirty years. And it thus disappears each 
such period — or suppose we use the paper certificates instead. 
Then we are at the annual expense of hoarding and keeping the 
"hostage," and risk, for humanity is fallible and locks and ke} 7 s 
and bonds and penalties will fail to debar and deter. 

National banks though watched, break, state and national offi- 
cers default. And at best, we would all be doing business on faith 
and credit and trust, at least, that there was a coin dollar in the 
treasury to "redeem" our certificates. 

And now General Weaver, of Iowa, has discovered and ex- 



13(5 

posed to the country the humiliating fact that the above $60,000,- 
000 of surplus funds that has been accumulating in the U. S. Treas- 
ury for years was not in the vaults of the U. S. Treasury as the peo- 
ple supposed, but was actually purloined by bribed Secreta- 
ries of the Treasury and divided out by them for years and now, 
among about 298 national banks. 

And then suppose rebellion or foreign invasion, should come 
again as both have come ; in one instance the capital was taken 
(1814) and burned ; in the other it came near it (Bull Run) and 
perhaps would have been, if there had been $1,00'. >, 000, 000 "coin" 
stowed there to be the prize. And then where would we be? Bank- 
rupt sure enough, in war no money, no basis, all gone. It would 
be Amlek with no Dagon, Israel with no Ark, the Chinaman with no 
cue, the idol of our faith, confidence, trust broken. Shame on the 
spirit of incarnate, hell-born greed, and distrust, that puts its faith 
and confidence in such things. It always enslaves and dishonors 
those, who do it. It is this devilish spirit of distrust and infideli- 
ty to-day, that makes Europe a camp-ground ; her coasts and bor- 
ders to bristle with forts, war navies, arsenals, canon and bayonets ; 
one Christian? sovereign and government enslaving its people to 
keep one-half its able bodied men in the standing army, Avhile the other 
half are enslaved to support the nation, on a war footing, to pro- 
tect it against another Christian? Sovereign? and Government? Dis- 
trust, want of faith factionizes and atomizes society. Faith, confi- 
dence, trust, are the gravitation of the moral and intellectual world, 
the only force that can held civil society together. 

The greatest man or woman is the one of the greatest faith and 
a nation is only an aggregation of individuals audits capacity in the 
polarized capacities of them all. 

Faith is to the world of mind, what fact is to the world of mat- 
ter ; to a truly great mind, its faith is fact ; Washington's faith was 
fact to him, and he made it fact to the world. Ideas are the great- 
est political factors, in the world ; they set armies in motion and 
shake the nations with their tread. A man or a nation is never 
struck so hard as when struck with a truly, full grown, great idea. 

The idea of physical separation and political independence which 
our fathers conceived after seven years of travail brought forth York- 
town. The idea of civil and religious liberty, gathered from the 
writings of the Encycloprediests of France, set her effete institu- 
tions in a whirl, in the Revolution. If Christianity is anything it is 
a system of faith ; if it is great in anything it is in its faith in God 
and man. Its founder, surrounded by Roman legions, confronted 
with a Roman governor who had power to release or to crucify, said 
"now is my kingdom not from hence;" not of this world, of its ar- 
mies or gold or influence ; he said he could command "legions of 
angels" to tight. But that would have been a moral degradation an 
overturning of his moral government of faith and charity. If 
Christian civilization is anything different from or greater than the 
effete systems, that for a time flourished under paganism and then 



137 

went out in blood, tears and ashes, it is in its faith, trust and con- 
fidence in man and God, in a degree like that of its Immortal 
Founder. And yet with shame and in sorrow, we are compelled to 
admit a great many of the so-called ministers of his gospel to-day, 
teach and preach the gospel of temporal infidelity, distrust and want 
of faith ; the Dagon, Jaugurnaut, the Molech Amlek hostage per- 
petual public debt, the hard honest money, the distrust, the infidel 
system of finance. Do it, too, [with bitterness and ridicule of the 
people's faith ; do it for a share of "blood money," the tithe, the 
usurer deigns to give them, the prophets of Baal, for their minister- 
ing in his groves and high places." At contemplation of it we bow 
our heads in shame and sorrow. But the Nazarene is still able to go 
with "a whip of chords" and drive the thieves and money changers 
out of his father's house. 

Again we find the only thing that checks the greedy and cor- 
rupt crowd of religious and political parasites, now as then, is "be- 
cause they feared the people." Now they say, not on election day 
lest there be an uproar of the people ; then "not on a feast day lest 
there bean uproar of the people." The more we contemplate this 
system the more it appears a relic of feudal despotism, the twin sis- 
ter of chattel slavery and repugnant to all Christian and enlighten- 
ed policy. Debt is in fiscal conditions what vacuum is in nature ; 
nature abhors and will not brook a vacuum ; she will not brook obe- 
sity or exhaustion. She is all the time working to the end of level- 
ing inequalities, filling vacuums and paying debts. The very wind 
that "bloweth where it listeth" is on an errand to fill a rarified con- 
dition ; the ocean currents, the rivers are on the same mission. The 
lightning and thunder that rives the oak and shake the hills are her 
protests against debt, as she balances the ledger, between the over- 
charged positive or creditor cloud and undercharged negative or 
debtor one. She will loan to man and animal the elements that 
make his body ; but she will not brook the idea of an eternal loan or 
debt ; she demands and enforces settlement and payment in death ; 
"dust thou art and to dust shall thou return." But she never de- 
mands interest or usur}-. Usury is only a device of human cupidi- 
ty, to perpetuate debt; secure it to be paid over and over again and 
yet never discharged. It is like slave blood in the mother's veins in 
chattel slavery ; she imparts it to her offspring to all eternity. But 
for the usury the debt would not be desirable to the creditor or tyr- 
anny to the debtor. 

We have paid our present public debt since 1865 twice, in usu- 
ry, and yet at the end of twenty-five years paying we owe nearly half 
of it and must pay that twice yet. Our history as a nation shows we 
have had a war that incurs the contraction of public debt once in each 
twenty-five years. (1). The War of the Revolution. (2). The 
War of 1812. (3). The Mexican War in 1846. (4). The late 
Civil War, 1861. Our national policy always has been until 1861-5 
and since, to pay in time of peace the unavoidable debts of war. 
Such was the doctrine of the fathers. The following is the language 



-138- 

of Washington on this subject in his immortal Farewell Address to 
the American people. 

"As a very important source of strength and security cherish 
public credit. 

One method of preserving it, is to use it as sparingly as possi- 
ble ; avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remem- 
bering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger fre- 
quently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding 
likewise the accumulation of debt, not only shining occasions of debt 
but by vigorous exeriions in time of peace to discharge the debts 
which unavoidable war may have occasioned ; not ungenerously 
throwing on posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to 
bear." 

How do those sentiments comport with Mr. Arthur's assertion, 
quoted ante page 10S "that the rapid extinguishment of the public 
debt that is now going on, is not only not a matter of congratula- 
tion but of serious apprehension." The one is the Republican doc- 
trine of Washington and the Revolutionary Fathers, who gained our 
independence and framed the Constitution ; the latter is the utter- 
ance of a subsidized official, made to announce the English monarch- 
ial doctrine of George III and his hessian allies. 

For twenty years the English monarchical doctrine has obtained 
and for twenty-five years we have paid usury and have paid the debt 
two or two and a half times, and still owe half or nearly so of it ; 
and this apostate bank influence is fighting to the death for the per- 
petuation of the balance of it. Although all its treasonable asser- 
tions are negatived by the Great Legal Tender Decision, it shows 
no sign of raising the twenty-live years seige. The original law 
only granted as a temporary measure, charters to the banks 
for twenty years. But as their terms drew to a close the Presidents 
in messages and Secretaries and Controllers in reports to Congress 
commenced to recommend the law be so amended they might renew 
for another twenty years. And now there are nearly 2800 of them 
in existence and more than ever before. 

If the public debt is to be promptly paid according to the Amer- 
ican doctrine why are these English political institutions that can 
only remain so long as they hold U. S. bonds to secure their bank 
notes, fostered, fattened and toadied to by our administrations,? Let 
any man with the brains of a lobster answer? It is plain as day — 
the struggle is upon us ; the tories are entrenched in the U. S. Sen- 
ate and the executive department, and are fighting a running fight 
like Lexington and Concord for the House. Shall they have it ? 

In all the "Refunding Acts" the point fought for by this influ- 
ence always has been to put the payment of the U. S. bonds beyond 
the power of this generation to pay. And now suppose war comes 
again in the future as it has in the past and $1,000,003,000 of the last 
debt on which we have been paying for twenty-five or forty years is 
still shading us ; I ask thinking men and women in what situation 
will we then be? If it is, and is to be perpetual, what of the ad- 



139 

ditional that must be incurred to meet the exigencies of the time? 
And at that rate and with that as the policy, what of the future? 
A person of but little foresight "a wayfaring man though a fool," 
can see that soon the Bond Bank feudal system will have us just 
where it now has the English people ; that is, where we will ask the 
system, not what we will do with it but what it will do with us. 

No systems of domestic law of any civilized people permits the 
debt of the ancestor to descend upon the heir. If the ancestor 
leaves encumbered property to his heir, the heir to possess the prop- 
erty, it is true, must discharge the encumbrance. But, if the prop- 
erty does not pay half the ancestor's debts or any of them, the heir 
goes free But this system encumbers all of the property of the 
nation with a perpetual mortgage and the debt descends from an- 
cestor to heir from generation to generation. According to it the 
present generation of Americans, too pusilanimous to sustain, per- 
petuate and hand down the Republic unimpaired to its successor, 
must mortgage the lives, labor and capacity of children unborn to 
this hell-born, thieving alien monarchial system. That is handing 
down "the republic and constitution to our children unimpaired'' 
with a vengeance is it not? Shame on a generation of slaves, who 
will put their necks under the yoke of eternal debt and George III 
and his minions and successors with the docility, stupidity and sto- 
lidity of an ox ! Shall we do it? Shall we, in th<- language of 
Washington, ''throw on posterity the burden we ought to bear?" 

It is one thing to point out infirmities and abuses in existing 
systems ; it is another to suggest a cure or a better one. 

There is but one cure for the system as we have been discuss- 
ing, it or civil liberty must die In fact we have now no system; 
we have a kind of half of two, a republican and a monarchial. 
Our legal tender notes so far have fought for and maintained only a 
precarious existence. 

The bank system is fighting to put them and the silver coin 
and certificates out of existence. 

The situation demands action, the offices of statesmanship. For 
twenty years we have vascillated between two systems and our in- 
terests in this great matter have floated about upon the varying 
fortunes of the contest waged by the banks. 

We are at the mercy of an experimental half and half system. 
"A house divided against itself cannot stand ;" "the country will 
yet be all slave or all free," said Lincoln of the "Missouri Compro- 
mise Line" and other superficial, temporary half and half measures 
of the time. We are to-day in a better situation to demand a set 
tlement of the matter, than we will ever be again. The question is, 
shall we have a "republican" or a "monarchial" system of finance? 
Shall we 1)h "borrowers" and "servants" to all eternity? or shall we 
as Washington recommended, "pay in time of peace, the unavoid- 
able debts" of war? 

If we are to be freemen, citizens, instead of "subjects" the first 
thing to be done is throttle the system, that for twenty-five years 



140 

has besieged the liberties and constitution of the Republic. This 
can be done in any one of three ways. 1. Repeal the law granting 
their charter. 2. Pay the national debt. 3. Issue a sufficient vol- 
ume of Legal tender notes and silver certificates and coined silver 
to take the place of their notes and discard them. That is refuse 
to be "borrowers" and "servants." 

There would be no experiment in this. For twenty-five years 
with no basis but the faith, trust and confidence of the people based 
on their credit over $300,000,000 of the legal tender notes have been 
and still are circulating as money. And since 1879 at par ; and 
$300,000,000 more of them would circulate just the same. Orif that 
is thought too great an innovation, take the bank agents and attor- 
neys out of the Presidential chair and out of the office of the Secretary 
of the Treasury ; instead of the coinage of the minimum of two coin the 
maximum of four millions of silver per month under existing law ; and 
see to it that no certificates are issued of a higher denomination 
than ten dollars ; that half of them are five dollars and under. And 
if no bonds are due buy bonds on the market to a volume $200,000,- 
01 '0 of principal with the "surplus." And then wait one year and see if 
the sun stood still; see if the hog and chicken cholera swept the land 
like a conflagration ; see if anybody is shocked, who it is. In our 
humble opinion nobody would be, but the hessian camp of gold, 
bond and bank conspirators. They would be nearly as badly as 
the} r were at Bunker Hill. Yes and the Republic would be with a 
new victory and new life for the future, like that it received at York- 
town. 

Wait one year and see if John Sherman the father of "Re- 
sumption" would die or go to his political father, John Bull. And 
then, if none of these dire results happened, we think at that time 
country might even venture to follow the advice of Jefferson and 
"take the power to issue the currency from the bank corporations 
and restore it to government to whom it belongs." 

And we would not then have to exceed $18.00 per capita for 
our population. And then if the English banks thought the coun- 
try was in danger from "inflation of the currency" let them with- 
draw their bank issues, those of them who had charters and bonds 
to continue upon. In any event, treat them as the Revolutionary 
Fathers did the tories at the close of the revolution ; let them re- 
main in the country if the}* will obey the constitution and laws. But 
we think they ought to be sworn about once a year for the next ten, 
to that effect. Well at the end of one year let the Republic feel of 
itself, feel the pulse of the "public credit," if it beats firmly and 
the legal tender notes are still at par and we feel we need, say two 
dollars, per capita circulation more to be on a par half way with 
France and England in that respect, enact an amendment of the legal 
tender act, declaring that all legal tender notes in existence, shall 
be, as they will in fact have been, then, for ten years a legal tender 
for all debts public and private. And that the Secretary of the 
Treasury shall issue in addition to the volume already in existence 



141 

and pay them into circulation a volume of $100.000,000 — or two 
dollars per capita. And then be ready with the restoratives to re- 
vive the bank tories and aristocracy for it and Bourbon Europe will 
beshocked again, just as it was when Charles I and Louis XVI each 
lost his block- head ; yes, just as it was at Yorktown. But then the 
poor old miserable mummy of the fifteenth century needs shocking 
to get it out of the effete condition in which it has been for three 
centuries, or to bury it might be a better remedy. 

It had better be shocked that way than the way it will soon be, 
by home forces. 

And why not do if? It would not be half the power, nor half 
so violently used by Congress as the power these banks now hold 
and have used to suit their greedy purposes for the last twenty 
years. They now own over four dollars per capita of the bank pa- 
per currency of the country and undoubtedly control quite as much 
more. They ; 'issue" money and ''inflate the currency" by loaning 
it to the people ; they contract the currency by taking in old and re- 
fusing to make new loans. There is no law to compel them to loan 
money. 

The Congress issues money through the U. S. Treasury by pay- 
ing it into circulation. The legal tender notes, the coin and coin 
certificates, that go out through the U. S. Treasury, go out free to 
a free people; they do not go out •'borrowed" to "borrowers" and 
"servants." They pay a debt to a citizen when they are 
born into the world of commerce; they go out free born and 
go on the errand of debt paying, healing the financial disease 
of the people free and are like the "leaves of the tree of 
life" that "are for the healing of the nations." The bank currency 
makes a debt when it is born into the world of commerce from be- 
hind the bank counter ; it is slave born ; it goes out like a dog with 
his master's name on the collar; it goes out on a "aticketof leave," 
a gilt edge note, at ten per cent in advance, perhaps for sixty days. 
At the snap of its master's fingers, like a dog, it comes crouching 
back and crawls under his counter. And the American people 
crawl like spaniels under and around the outside of his counter and 
have done it for twenty years. 

These blood-sucking tyrants, these bank and railroad corpora- 
tions, show a wonderful interest in your affairs. For twenty years 
they have argued and a venal subsidized press to-day, argues it 
would never do to entrust so important a subject as the "control of 
the volume of the currency" to Congress. But the same gang of 
tories will argue for confiding it to and leaving it in the hands of the 
banks. This proposition to issues $2.00 per capita of legal tender 
notes, will be assailed by them on that ground. I ask thinking 
Americans to stop a moment. What does the constitution say? — 
We have seen. What does the Supreme Court say? We will re- 
peat. "The States can no longer declare, what shall be money, or 
regulate its value. Whatever power there is over the currency is 
vested in the Congress. 



142 

If this is not a ''power,'' the "control of the volume," why do 
these banks fight to retain it? If it is a power it belongs to Con- 
gress. "Whosoever controls the volume of the currency is abso- 
lute master of the commerce and industries of the country." — Gar- 
field. When the currency of the country is contracted down and 
down from 15 to 14 to 13 dollars per capita to only a breath or two 
above a panic, as we now are, a man of sense sees at a glance that 
the last two or three dollars per capita in actual circulation are the 
dollars that tell on financial and commercial life and death ; that de- 
cide whether we have panic or not. And these last three, yes. 
eight dollars, this system owns and controls and does not hesitate 
to threaten us with and use. But for Congress to issue and pay into 
circulation a volume of two dollars per capita, is to them the hight 
of folly. It is a breach of "prerogative," equal to the "States 
General, 1 ' giv ng Louis XVI and the two thieving orders five hours 
in which to take their seats in the hall, to consider and vote on the 
issues that involved the existence of France. 

As we have shown, these tyrannical corporations now, by the 
class legislation that stain our statutes are enabled to and actually 
do by controlling the commerce, the means by which it is effected, 
that is the transportation and the money, levy on the American peo- 
ple, a direct tax equivalent to ten dollars per capita per annum. 
But that in their estimation is small matter, so long as it goes to 
them. But now for Congress to issue $2.()0 per capita to circulate 
as money would be in their eyes most unwarrantable. Or, if that 
were thought too great a change, issue one dollar per capita per 
year and keep the eye on the pulse of the public credit. We think 
the Congress and the government through the treasury department 
as good judges of the matter of the "volume of the currency," 
that should at any time be in circulation in the marts of commerce, 
and may as well be trusted to control that matter as the alien bank- 
ing system. 

We do not recommend any such confiscation of private rights as 
was made by the Congress under the lead and dictation of the banks 
from 1 805 to 1873 to effect resumption as they called it; and it is 
still defended by that system. It then, in the short period of seven 
years, reduced the currency from a volume of :-48 to $13 per capi- 
ta ; that is $35 per capita or five dollars per year, f -r seven success- 
ive ones. It was simple, legal, confiscation, to enrich a chiss. Even 
in 1868, when it was just fairly inaugurated and before he was con- 
verted (?) to this system, Mr. Sherman said of the "contraction 
policy," on the floor of the U. S. Senate in a speech on the subject: 
"To attempt this last (resumption of specie payme ts by contrac- 
tion), by a surprise on our people, by arresting them in the midst of 
their lawful business and applying a new standard to the value of 
their property, without any reduction of their debts or giving them 
an opportunity to compound with their creditors, would bean net of 
folly without an example of evil in modern times." Yet this man, 
I he very next year advocated all these measures and helped to push 



143 

the'm to the extreme of "panic," "bankruptcy and disaster" in 
1873 and until arrested by the act, May 31, 1878. 

Their acts of confiscation were deliberate. Their opposition to 
any measure to reverse thir policy now comes from the same greedy 
motives. Cannot the American people seize and comprehend the sit- 
uation? Can they not see that "contraction'' to a low volume in so 
far is confiscation to them ? And that is the motive of the feudal 
system to reduce the volume to the minimum. And each measure 
we have recommended, is conservative. 

It would tie no innovation. It would be the course of events 
turned from a feudal system of finance to a modern republican one. 
And no measure so taken would be one but that has the sanction 
of the highest American authority. 

Washington and all the Fathers for the payment of the debt, 
Jefferson for retiring the bank currency, let them c nt.inue a legiti- 
mate bank business, We are here and now only assailing their is- 
sues of notes. And by a careful 'following of this policy we would 
pass out of the half and half policy into a republican system with 
no shock to the commerce and industries of the country. If our 
volume reached $30 per capita and all was well composed of legal 
tender notes, coin and certificates based on and redeemable in coin, 
who could complain? In our opinion much more summary measures 
than these ought to be taken with the subject. 

Repeal the bank charters at once. Supply their notes with le- 
gal tender treasury notes, if necessary, to keep the volume of the 
currency at least to what it now is, about $14.00 per capita. 

We are only a few stages above a panic now. A sufficient 
ground for the repeal of the entire system is that it is in violation 
of the plain letter and spirit of the constitution ; it never was intend- 
ed to and cannot be a permanent institution without violating all the 
historic traditions and usages of the fathers of the republic- in per- 
petuating our public debt. Now the conspirators shout with exul- 
tation, all the balance of the public debt is refunded beyond the 
power of this generation to pay. Strike down the alien feudal sys- 
tem and the main motive to perpetuating it will be removed. 

The premium on the. bonds will decline. Very true it is "En- 
glish you know;" so was the "stamp act." "You know" these pat- 
rons of the republic in the Revolution, in the language of that 
Grand Old Englishman, Lord Chatham, in his speech on the floor 
of the "House of Lords," on the "American War,'' said to his 
brethren, who were arguing the measure of setting the Indians, the 
"hounds of War 1 ' on our fathers to civilize them. "My lords I did 
not intend to encroach so much upon your time, but I cannot re- 
press my indignation ; I feel myself impelled to speak. My lords 
we are called upon as members of this House, as men, as Christians, 
to protest against such horrible barbarity. For "it is 

perfectly allowable" says Lord Suffolk "to use all the means which 
God and nature have put in our hands " What ideas of God and 
nature that noble l#>rd may entertain I know not; I know that such 



144 

detestable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. 
What ! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the 
massacres of the Indian scalping knife ! to the cannibal savage, tor- 
turing, murdering, devouring, drinking the blood of his mangled 
victims ! Such notions shock every precept of morality, every feel- 
ing of humanity, every sentiment of honor. 

These abominable principles and this more abominable avowal 
of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that 
right reverend bench to vindicate the religion of their 
God, to support the justice of their country. I call on the 
bishops to interpose their unsullied sanctity upon the judges to in- 
terpose the purity of their ermine to save us from this pollution. I 
call upon the honor of your lordships to reverence the dignity of 
your ancestors and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and 
humanity of my country to vindicate the national character. I in- 
voke the genius of the Constitution. From the tapestry that adorn 
these walls, the immortal ancestor of this lord frowns with indigna- 
tion at the disgrace of his country. In vain did he defend the lib- 
erty and establish the religion of Britain, against the tyranny of 
Rome if these worse than Popish cruelties and inquisitorial 
practices are endured among us. To send forth the merciles cannibal, 
thirsting for blood! Against whom? Your protestaut brethren, 
to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings and to extir- 
pate their race and name by the instrumentalities. of these horrible 
hounds of war. Spain can no longer boast of pre-eminence in bar- 
barity. She armed herself with hounds to extirpate the wretched 
natives of Mexico ; we, more ruthless, loose the dogs of war against 
our countrymen in America endeared to us by every tie that can 
sanctify humanity. I solemnly call upon your lordships and upon 
every order of men in the State to stamp upon this infamous proce- 
dure the indellible stigma of the public abhorrence. More particu- 
larly I call upon the holy prelates of our religion to do away this 
iniquity ; let them perform the lustration to purify the country from 
this deep and deadly sin. My lords I am old and weak and at pres- 
ent unaole to say more ; but my feelings and indignation were too 
strong to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my 
bed, nor even reposed my head upon my pillow, without giving vent 
to my eternal abhorrence of such enormous and preposterous prin- 
ciples.'' It was almost his dying effort. But all in vain. The 
measure, to hire the Indian savages, to furnish them arms and spir- 
its to inspire to a higher pitch their naturally brutal passions was 
carried by "my lords" spiritual and temporal." And in due time fol- 
lowed the "well-known mode of warfare" of the savage murdering 
our fathers, outraging their , wives, mothers, sisters, sweet-hearts. 
Lord Chatham might as well have appealed to the "bench," "bish- 
ops" and "lords" of the domain of his satanic majesty for "mercy," 
"religion" or "humanity." 

It was "English you know," when they came back in 1814 and 
burned our national capital in violation of all the usages of civilized 



145 

war. It was "English you know," when Earl Russell as corres- 
pondent of the London Times in the first years of our late civil 
war gleefully wrote to it and it gleefully published to the world, 
"the great bubble of American liberty has burst at last." 

This inhuman sentiment he wrote from the midst of our fratri- 
cidal desolation, and while treated with the utmost kindness and 
consideration, by both sides. As much, as to say, the daj^-break of 
the present and future, of liberty and civilization recedes and the 
night of the past draws on again. Come up ye political owls of the 
fifteenth century and croak, blink, nod and hoot to each other of 
"prerogative" of "royal families" of "provinces" traded off or "dis- 
membered" to appease the spite of a "mistress," or the gout or ne- 
cessities of his ^majesty?" Lift up your heads "lords" and "la- 
dies, 1 ' (Campell forinstance) ; comeonthe "Notables" the "Nobility" 
and the "clergy" of France and "St. Bartholomew" to the contrary 
notwithstanding; come on. Napoleon and Francis Joseph, with vour 
delectable crowd of "clogs of war," who fight for sixteen cents per 
day and lay the younger sister republic, Mexico, in the dust; ravish 
her of her liberties while her older sister cannot defend her or her- 
self. Rouse all the mummies out of the holes, where indignant and 
oppressed Europe has stowed them ; rally them to the charge once 
more! For "the great bubble of American liberty has burst at 
last." We always said it was only a "bubble," held up by the 
demagogues, Washington, Adams, Jefferson and the rest to dazzle 
the ignorant rabble. We always said the English constitution al- 
lowed all the liberty the "common herd" could appreciate ; we always 
said "the bubble" would burst, and now it has and our predictions 
are all verified. The idea of "republican self-government" is ex- 
ploded. Now let mankind come back to us, their old masters, and 
"strong ' government and safety. Yes, and now with the laurels of 
the fifteenth century on our brows, with the banner of "the divine 
right of kings," with the incestous union of "church and state" red- 
olent with the odor of roasting heretics, hetacombs of slaughtered 
infidels and Christians, we are coming to celebrate a triumph and 
put Maximillian on the throne of Mexico and emphatically veto that 
political heresy "the Monroe doctrine." We have come to reverse 
Yorktown and the American Revolution, the storming of the Bastile, 
and the French Revolution, the Mexican Republican Constitution 
and civil and religious liberty, divorcement of "church and state;" 
and we will wed them again with the benediction of the past. Thus 
reasoned the ignorance and brutality of the past ; thus it roused it- 
self to grapple at the throats of world's republics and the hope of 
humanity for the future. Every intelligent reader of history 
knows that the English government, house of lords and ar- 
istocracy have been the focal center and rallying point of the Bour- 
bonism of Europe and the past as against the present and future of 
the world for the last century. The English people are great in ma- 
ny respects but they have for two centuries supported and to-day 
support a government whose morality is no better than that of Pa- 



146 

gan Rome. But it is "so English, you know." It brings in the 
money. India is robbed and plundered to grow opium, to debauch 
China and the world wherever its governments will permit. The 
following is the statement of an enlighted Christian Englishman of 
his country's connection with the opium traffic. The Christian, of 
February 3, 1887, says: "In British India the opium trade is "a 
gigantic government monopoly. Without a government license no 
opium can be grown. Government advances enable the cultivator 
to sow the seed. Government agents inspect the growth. To the 
government officials the crude opium is delivered up at the price 
which the government fixes. In the government factories alone is 
it manufactured to suit the Chinese taste. At monthly sales it is 
sold by government auctioneers at a profit of about 300 per cent, to 
be carried to China. The proceeds, amounting to about five mil- 
lions sterling, are put in the government treasury. Could our con- 
nection with the trade be closer or our responsibility for it more 
complete? The opium grown in Malwa and the other native states 
is sent to Bombay for shipment to China. As it crosses British ter- 
ritory, a tax equal to half its value is levied upon it by British offi- 
cials. From this source a further sum of about two and a half mil- 
lions sterling passes into the government coffers. In proportion as 
we have made a market for opium in China, so this branch of the 
trade has grown. Altogether some seven and a half millions ster- 
ling of revenue per annum have been derived in India from the opi- 
um trade, though the amount is variable. Practically, this goes to 
pay the salaries of Indian officials who administer the government." 

Of England's unprovoked attack upon China in 1S41-2 to com- 
pel her to admit English opium at her ports. Ridpath, the 
historian. Vol. 3, 1334 page, says: "Thus by the law or the 
strongest and the law of the cannon was China compelled to expose 
her teeming millions to the ravages of the life destroying drug of 
Turkey, presented by the hand of Christian England. It was a 
work preparatory to the successful planting of Christian missions! 
The mockery needs no comment." 

After forcing China into submission, England returns to India, 
and robs her beggared people of 7G,80 ',000 acres of her richest 
lands, which she prostitutes to the production of opium. The com- 
mon people of India have been beggared by England's presence for 
two centuries. Her conduct has been and is enough to have provo- 
ked ten "Sepoy Rebellions." Our fathers "rebelled" against En- 
glish rule for mild treatment compared with it. 

The common people of India work for two and a half and three 
cents a day to support the dissolute, brutal English policy and gov- 
ernment in India and China. English speaking missionaries must 
feel embarrassed in preaching the gospel of peace and of the golden 
rule in the presence of the British flag. Intelligent India men must 
regard it as rather cold irony. 

If the missionaries in India, who make so much ado of the 
"protection" they receive from England in India, would tell and 



147 

publish the tale of India's woe, as robbed, plundered and beaten 
annually into subjection, in my humble opinion the last one of them 
would be expelled from her borders in two years. The} ? do not do 
it ; the church does not do it. We say tell the truth if the heavens or 
John Bull falls. Au enlightened liberty loving people, as we claim 
to be, ought to cry out against her worse than Pagan practices in 
India and China ; expose her to the Christian world ; create a moral 
public sentiment, that will drive the old civilized gouhl out of India 
and China, Turkey, Egypt and Ireland and her feudal perpetual 
public debt policy out of the United States. Itis with shame we con- 
fess it ; but it is a humiliating truth that English ce sorship seems 
to hold its sword over the "press," "secular and "religious" and the 
"pulpit" of our country. In the name of civil and religious liber- 
ty, in the name of Him who laid the foundation for it when he said 
"Do unto others as ye would that they should do to you," we invoke 
the return upon the country at least, in a measure of the "spirit of 
1776." A very mild return and baptism of it will banish English 
intervention in our financial and political affairs and its ally our An- 
glicised perpetual public debt banking system. Our literature and 
schools and nearly all history in our tongue have been so anglicised 
and discolored that in nine out of ten instances the young, who quit 
our schools with a supposed education are compelled to unlearn all 
they had learned of the influence of English government in the 
world for the last three centuries. She has two plans of intermed- 
dling in the affairs of other countries. A poor weak half civilized 
people are induced to give her foot-hold on the pretense of "com- 
merce." 

Once there she intrudes her soldiery and after that any resist- 
ance to her greedy dictation constitutes the natives rebels and they 
are promptly bayoneted into obedience. If a great people, too 
great for such methods then she jends her polished aristocratic di- 
plomatists and capitalists to galvanize into life a sort of kindred 
class of their own in the country thus assailed ; it is and has grown 
to be a well-defined system of political Jesuitism. The following 
is a copy of a circular said to have been used to corrupt our capi- 
talists and bankers and signed by an English banker named Hasard 
in 1 s 6 2 . It will show whence the idea of our "National Banking 
System" came. 

"Slavery is likely to be abolished by the war now in progress, and 
chattel slavery destroyed. This I and my European friends are in favor 
of, for slavery is but the owning of labor and carries with it the care 
of the laborer; while the European plan, led by England, is, capital 
controlling the money. To accomplish this, they (the bonds) must 
be used as the banking basis. We are now waiting to get the sec- 
retary of the treasury to make this recommendation to Congress. It 
will not do to allow the greenbacks, so called, to circulate any length 
of time, or we cannot control the bonds and through them the bank 
issue. 1 ' 

Yon see with that class of gentlemen the choice is between two 



148 

systems, "wage" or "chattel" slavery; and of the two this English 
banker has the candor to tell our capitalists and bankers they have 
tried both and prefer "wage slavery." 

For the only difference in the two systems is actual "owner- 
ship" of the slave. But, by the system of "controling the money,'' 
they not only can enslave 3,000,000 black chattel slaves, but also, 
45,000,000 of the "proud caucassian" as well. And the Secretary 
of the Treasury did recommend every measure asked by the English 
bank and capitalistic influence. And every successor of his since 
to this day has done it. Strange coincidence is it not? Before Sen- 
ator Sherman became the open ally of the alien English bank influ- 
ence in our political and financial affairs, he said of this influence 
and its interference in our affairs in a speech on the subject. "Many 
millions of our bonds and other securities have crossed the water 
and England is merry at the prospect of a rich tribute to be drawn 
yearly from the sweat and toil of American citizens." 

How long it will take her to acquire the lion's share cannot be 
determined with mathematical certainty ; but from the start she has 
taken, the period will be short, probably not longer than Washing- 
ton and his army were engaged in accomplishing our independence." 
After we have banished the English bank influence gained our sec- 
ond declaration of independence and Yorktown, then let us put up 
an adamantine, constitutional barrier against the second entrance of 
such influence. The XII amendment as follows: Sec. 1, "Neither 
slavery or involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime, 
whereof the party stands convicted, shall exist within the United 
States or any place subject to their jurisdiction," did way forever 
with chattel slavery. Now, let the XVI Amendment, in the follow- 
ing or like words forever do way with anglicised perpetual public debt 
"wage slavery." Article XVI, Sec. I, "Hereafter no interest-bear- 
ing obligation of the United States shall ever be issued for any 
purpose ; nor shall interest be paid upon any such obligations." 
That is the next Amendment to be made ; until made, we have 
"wage slavery" in existence. But what will we do in time of war? 
Do just as we have always done ; just as Washington and the Rev- 
olutionary Fathers did ; just as we did in 1862 when we had no for- 
eign or domestic credit; just as we did half way by the legal tender 
acts; coin the faith, credit, patriotism of the nation into (next time) 
a full legal tender money. Then pass an act declaring it high trea- 
son for any man to assail their character as money, and on convic- 
tion make the penalty banishment forever from the United States. 
For in the first place no war is justifiable, only a war of self-de- 
fense to preserve the republic, or its immediate, allies from invasion 
or itself from insurrection. And let the man and womanhood of 
each successive American generation be pledged and held responsi- 
ble for preserving and handing down unimpaired, the liberties and 
constitution of the Republic, to its succesor. Let it be understood 
once and forever, that every man and every dollar stand pledged 
and subject to call as a volunteer, or by draft if necessary, for that 



149 

purpose. And teach the sordid, political ingrate arid scoundrel, 
who will not assent to these measures, that he had better seek a 
more congenial clime where they have rich men's wars, and poor 
men's fights;" where 300 families own half the land and wealth of 
the country and a perpetual public debt mortgage on all of it and 
where the "wage slaves" stay if they can rent. If the government 
can draft the poor man's all, soul, body and time, to make a living 
for his family, to hold a bayonet and make a wall of flesh to repel 
the invader, it can draft the rich man's dollar's to feed and clothe 
him and his family, while he does it. A government that cannot or 
will not do it is unworthy of the name. This capitalistic class of 
gentlemen seem to have exalted ideas of the rights of capital ; in 
their estimation, human flesh and blood is pitifully cheap. That the 
poor man's body is none too good to be drafted into line, to stop an 
invader's bullets, but their property is too sacred to be even indi- 
rectly pledged with the rest of the life and fortune of the republic, 
for the payment of legal tender notes to save the life of the nation. 
In the great legal tender decision, they raised and pressed the point 
that to make anything but gold or silver a legal tender for debt vio- 
lated and impaired the obligation of contracts in permitting the 
debt to be paid in a cheaper money; and that the legal tender acts 
were unconstitutional, both as to contracts made before and since 
their passage for this reason. To this argument the Supreme Court 
says: "Neither of these assumptions can be accepted. It is true 
that under the acts a debtor who became such before they were pass- 
ed, may discharge his debt with the notes authorized by them and 
the creditor is eompelable to receive such notes in discharge of his 
claim. But whether the obligation of the contract is thereby weak- 
ened can be determined only ri'ter considering what was the con- 
tract obligation. It was not a duty to pay gold or silver, or the 
kind of money recognized by law at the time when the contract was 
made, nor was it a duty to pay money of equal intrinsic value in the 
market. (We speak now of contracts to pay money generally, not 
contracts to pay some specifically defined species of money.) The 
expectation of the creditor and the anticipation of the debtor may 
have been that the contract would be discharged by the payment of 
coined metals, but neither the expectation of one party to the con- 
tract respecting its fruits, nor the anticipation of the other consti- 
tutes its obligations. There is a well recognized distinction between 
the expectation of the parties to a contract and the duty imposed 
by it. Were it not so, the expectation of results 

would be always be equivalent to a binding engagement that they 
should follow. 

But the obligation of a contract to pay money, is to pay that 
which the law shall recognize as money, when the payment is to be 
made." That is, these would be tyrants were told in plain words, 
money is a societary invention for mutual convenience and a crea- 
ture of municipal law. We recognize the fact you are members of 
society and owe it some obligations, whether you do or not. 



150 

Yuu propose to and do enjoy its benefits; yon must and shall 
share some of its, may be burdens, in periods of peril and danger. 
And then proceeds to illustrate how the "fruits" of a contract may 
be entirely destroyed by government, in its efforts in taking meas- 
ures to preserve societ}^ and itself, in time of war, or by its asser- 
tion of its rights of eminent domain in time of peace. "Every con- 
tract for the payment of money, simply, is of necessity subject to 
the constitutional power of the government over the currency, what- 
ever that power may be, and the obligation of the parties is there- 
fore assumed, with reference to that power. Nor is this singular. 
A covenant for }uiet enjoyment is not broken, nor is its obligation 
impaired by the government taking the land granted in virtue of 
its eminent domain. The expectation of the covenantee may be dis- 
appointed. He may not enjoy all he anticipated, but the grant was 
made and the covenant undertaken in subordination to the para- 
mount right of the government, (cites authorities.) 

Nor can it be truthfully asserted that Congress may not, by its 
action indirectly, impair the obligation of contracts, if the express- 
ion be meant rendering contracts fruitless, or partial h fruitless. 
Directly it may, confessedly, by passing a bankrupt act, embracing 
past as well as future transactions. This is obliterating contracts en 
tirely, so it may relieve parties from their apparent obligations 
indirectly in a multitude of ways. It may declare war, or. even in 
peace, pass non-intercourse acts, or direct an embargo. All such 
measures may, and must operate seriously upon existing contracts, 
and may not merely hinder, but relieve the parties to such con- 
tracts, entirely from performance. "' And as we have heretofore 
pointed out, does do these very things, also, b.\ the execution and 
homestead exemption laws in time of peace If in time of war the 
issue of a reasonable volume of legal tender notes does not meet 
the exigencies of the situation, levy income and other taxes first. 
If this does not suffice and addititional drafts of men and means are 
necessary, while it drafts poor men, to fill the rank and file of the 
army, at the same time draft the rich man's money; — assess 
upon every citizen above such a sum, above his debts say, who owns 
$10,000 above all liabilities, so -much on the $100. to raise the nec- 
essary revenue and enact these provisions now, in time of peace, 
while it can be done deliberately. Do not wait to do it as we were 
compelled to do in 1862, with all the anti republican forces en- 
trenched behind the seats of a venal Senate, under the threatening 
cloud of war. But do it with the clear sky of peace overhead, 
when we have no compromise to offer or receive from the nnnnions 
of tyranny and greed. 

Poor men ami men of small means ought to refuse to bear 
arms for a government that will draft them to fill the ranks of its 
armies and. refuse to draft the rich man's money, to pay the expenses 
of the war. The soldier in our late war was paid $13.00 in legal 
tender notes depreciated at one time one hundred and fort} percent, 
or, at the rate of about $6.00 per month. 



151 

And that caused by the two "exceptions" on the note, put 
there to appease the greed of the gold gambling thieves, "wage 
slave" holders. 

While government paid its soldiers in greenbacks -worth $400 
in gold on the $1,000, these tories were buying U. S. six per cent 
gold interest bonds, payable in five or due in twenty years, that re- 
cited in their face they were payable in "lawful money of the coun- 
try" a $1,000 bond for $400 in gold ; or the same thing $1,000 in le- 
gal tender notes for $400 in gold and then buy the bond with the 
notes. And this was not enough ; they would not accept legal ten- 
der notes in payment of their bonds in 18G9, when the notes were 
worth 73.5 cents on the dollar; but they conspired with our English 
bank tories and all together with the aid of John Sherman passed 
the Infamous Act to strengthen the public credit, and indirectly 
pledge the people to the payment of their 5-20 bonds in coin. Our 
Congress "pensioned" its gallant bond-holding, gold gambling to- 
ries who hung like vultures on the outskirts of the battle field to rob 
the dead and prey on the veterans, widows and children of both 
sides. Its gallant bond-holders who entrenched themselves behind 
the seats of a venal Senate who were and are the vanguard, the 
rear guard, the rank, file, staff line and provision train of our feu- 
dal English banking system. What has it done for the "musket- 
holder" who was paid $G. 00 to $8.00 per month? When was the 
act passed to make good government obligations to him ? It is as if 
our fathers had pensioned Arnold and the "hessians" and the highly 
respectable set of lords and ladies of Boston who sailed out with 
Gen. Howe, when Washington informed that worthy and his class of 
American citizens who sang "Yankee Doodle," it was time for them 
to go, March 17, 1775. A people who will continue to tamely sub- 
mit to the species of outrage class legislation and robbery, to which 
the American people have for the last twenty years, are incapable of 
sustaining our form of government. It only remains to be seen if 
they will. We mistake if our Anglicised corporation aristocracy do 
not see omens of another "Boston Tea Party" before many years. 



WHAT CONSTITUTES A STATE. 



What constitutes a state? 
Not high-raised f battlements, or labored mound. 

Thick wall, or f moated gate ; 
Not cities proud with spires and fturrets crowned. 

Not bays and broad-armed ports, 
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride ; 

Not starred and fspangled courts, 
Where low-born baseness wafts perfume to pride. 



152— 

II. 

No; men, high-minded men, 
With powers as far above dull brutes indued, 

In forest, brake, or den, 
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude: 

Men, who their duties know, 
But know their rights; and knowing, dare maintain, 

Prevent the long-aimed blow, 
And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain: 

These constitute a state ; 
And sovereign law, that state's collected will, 

O'er thrones and globes elate, 
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill : 

Smit by her sacred frown, 
The fiend Discretion,* like a vapor, sinks, 

And e'en the all-dazzling crown 
Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks. 

Sir William Jones 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Protection or Free Trade. 

This subject relates to international policy. In this nations 
ought, as in all others, to "do to others as they would, that others 
do to them." 

But experience shows they do not and a people have the same 
right to protect their industries so as to reap the fruit of their labor 
they have to wage a war of self-defense to expel an invader. 

A true civilization of Christian morality would unify all human 
interests and put an end to the entire doctrine and controversy. 
The more we study the subject of political economy, no matter from 
what stand-point we view it. we see the true interests of human in- 
dustry and civilization are identical. And the man or class, who 
conspire to deprive labor of its just reward, conspire against the 
true interests of society and civilization. 

If "Protection" for what? One great political party of the 
day says "for revenue." the other "for revenue only." 

In fact under our constitution, government has no right to lay 
a tariff or duty as such for either purpose. It does not belong to 
the taxing power. A tax is a sum levied pro rata upon aman's pres- 
ent possessions ; it must be uniform with that levied on other like 
classes of persons and property; and is levied solely to defray the 



* Discretionary or arbitrary power. 



153 

expenses of government. The tariff is not levied on what the citi- 
zen owns in the present, but on what he is expected to use or buy in 
the future and without regard to whether or not it bears on all with 
equal burden. The distinction is sometimes made of direct and in- 
direct tax. 

All there is in protection that is like a tax is that after the meas- 
ure yields revenue and no other purpose is known to which to devote 
it, it is paid into the public treasury and used as other revenues 
collected as taxes are used. 

In truth, it is a mere measure of national policy and political 
economy, like the family of the' homestead and execution, exemp- 
tion and bankrupt laws. If to raise "revenue" or for "revenue 
only" were the only purpose, for which protective tariff were laid it 
is clear, thev ought not to be laid at all. For it would be an unjust 
unconstitutional use of the taxing power. If "protection" then 
for what? For manufacturers it is answered! All well but how? — 
By laying an indirect tax on all the rest of society of the country 
to protect and build up certain industries. 

And that is, or may be, all well, but it has limits in time and 
degree. 

If we do so tax ourselves for such a purpose for awhile to build 
up our manufacturers, that supposes that sometime there will be a 
time when they are built up and established and may stand on their 
own footing. 

We have no right in this country directly or indirectly to tax 
one or all other industries to build up one only in so far as it can be 
shown that as a matter of fact and policy in the end in the course of 
years, it will be better even for those who are thus taxed, and, in 
fact they will in the end, be benefitted thereby in the general pros- 
perity b' increased wealth and revenues and exemption from bur- 
dens and national commercial independence. And it ,- s a measure 
of national policy used against an outside, a second nationality. It 
does not belong to inter or domestic policy. It clearly is unconsti- 
tutional as applied to two domestic industries, that are both admit- 
ted to be lawful, neither under the ban of public policy. 

That class of domestic legislation that discriminates between 
two businesses or industries must come within the exercise of the 
police power to have a constitutional foundation. If it is a business 
wrong under the ban of public policy, an injury to society so de- 
clare and outlaw it. If not let it alone. The "revenue" is "only" 
a seco clary consideration. If it were the "only" one we would 
have no right to make a tariff rate at all ; that is not the way to 
raise revenue. There was :i time in our earlier history when this 
subject was of much more importance to us than now. Protection 
as a policy implies that it is temporary. 

If an industry or species of manufacture does not by it approach 
to a footing so it may by degrees be withdrawn, and stand alone, 
it condemns the whole system ; it does not accomplish what was in- 
tended. As a fact we know it does tend that way ; and many such 



154 

enterprises that once needed such assistance, now need it no more, 
or in a less degree. And it is the duty of Congress in the exercise 
of a sound discretion to withdraw such protection just as fast as it 
can be done, so as not to endanger the industry; or otherwise it runs 
to an imposition and monopoly. 

To engage in manufacturing enterprises to any considerable ex- 
tent, requires capital to procure shops, material, machinery and la- 
borers. The commencement of manufacturing enterprises is al- 
ways attended with difficulties. In the first place it takes time, ex- 
perience and expense to perfect machinery and skill laborers, so 
that a perfect article may be produced ; and when once produced it 
may take time and expense to find for it a market. During all this 
time the new establishment may be compelled to compete with those 
that are already established in the market, and thus have the pres- 
tige. This was the case with manufactures in our country in its 
early history, and it was found impossible to establish them without 
home protection. As Lord Brougham said when discussing this 
question in the House of Lords. "It is the policy of England to 
strangle foreign manufactures in their swaddling cloths," referring 
to our attempt in that direction at that time. 

He then advocated 'free trade 1 as the means by which to ac- 
complish this to him, most desirable end, and England to-day advo- 
cates the same doctrine for the same purpose. 

When our country did adopt free trade policy for a time, it en- 
abled the English manufactures to close up our shops just as effect- 
ually as if they had stationed a red-coat guard at the door of each 
one, and turned our laborers into the streets. We could not com- 
pete with their great capital and cheap labor. 

Since capital is required in the establishment of manufacturing 
enterprises it follows that the interests of capital and manufacture 
become identified and united. And to have command of the manu- 
facturing interests of a civilized country, is to have command to a 
great extent of its resources. 

The questions of a protective tariff and free trade are pre-emi- 
nently political ones and of all others ought to be discussed dispas- 
sionately ; for the policy pursued by governments on this subject has 
made and unmade nations. 

The establishment of manufactures tends to sharpen and quick- 
en the inventive genius of a people, to make them independent, 
thrifty and energetic; a matter of no small import. 

And the labor of producing the raw material is usually the most 
slavish ; while that of producing the manufactured article, although 
not so severe, is more remunerative. Also the producer of the raw 
material draws directly upon the natural resources of his country; 
while the manufacturer draws upon and invest nothing but his ma- 
chinery and labor. The nation that does not manufacture must pay 
* those that do its work. It has nothing with which to pay except the 
raw material, hence it must make a double draw on its natural re- 
sources, and thus support, at least in part, the manufacturing peo- 



155- 

pie. As, if we raise wool and do not manufacture cloth, but hire it 
done, then we must raise and sell an amount double our own de- 
mands, one half for our own use, the other to hire our own work 
done. And, as we must have cloth, and have no maehiuery and 
skilled labor to make it, we are at the mercy of the manufacturers ; 
their avarice, war, famine, or pestilence may cut off our supply. 

Our true policy is protection where it is necessary for protec- 
tion always ; but for revenue or for "revenue only" never. The 
west and south now need protection against the east nearly as much 
as the east ever needed it against England. But this must be done 
at the polls, and in fostering home manufactures. Itcannot be done 
by legislation. It must be done by snowing under with the ballot, 
the undue and tyrannical influence of the corporation money power 
that levies contributions, excises and taxes upon us. the like of 
which our Fathers never knew. Compared to which the ''stamp 
act" and others of its kind were mild. And they are crushing the 
enterprise and spirit and robbing the masses of the people of the 
east in common with us. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Insurance — Life and Fire. 

Life Insurance ought to be prohibited by law. (1.) It is in 
fact and morals and in law ought to be considered a gambling con- 
tract. On the company side the "stake" put up played for is the 
sum named in the policy; on the policy holder's side, the "stake" is 
the "premium." 

One of the main inducements to the business on the company 
side is the "forfeitures" by lapsing by failures to pay premiums. A 
simple life policy is just such a wager as if I say to you, I will wa- 
ger you $2,000 that the first day of April, 1*9(5' wiU'b.e a clear day. 
Or I will wager you ^2,000 that there will not be thirty consecutive 
clear days in this latitude in thirty years. And you say I will do it 
if you will pay me twenty-five dollars premium each year until there 
does come thirty consecutive such days. 

(2). The entire motive on both sides is to get something for 
nothing. If the terms of the policy or wager do ever become for- 
feit on either side one or the other does get something for nothing. 

Every such enterprise that holds out inducement to engage in 
such wagers or contracts to get something for nothing is positively 
wrong in principle and pernicious in its effect on society. It is the 
same as the lottery and wheel of fortune, only as a rule^ the wager 
takes a longer term of years to decide it, being as it is decided by 
life and death. Every occupation and so-called business that fur- 



156 

nishes facilities to accomplish and that does accomplish such objects, 
aids and assists in taking something for nothing ; tends to destroy 
the dependence of society upon good faith, labor, for "livings" to 
destroy the equation that ought always to subsist between produc- 
tion or earnings and consumption; and to repeal the law, "that if a 
man will not labor, neither shall he eat." 

This encourages idleness and shiftlessness on one hand and dis- 
courages industry and thrift on the other. 

(3). The entire business is begotten and born in usury, fed 
and fattened on it, "conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity." 

(4). The only argument attempted to be made in its defence 
is, it is a good way for a poor man to make provision for his family 
in case of sudden death. That is there is a chance for his family to 
get something for nothing. A speculation on the Board of Trade is a 
chance for the same thing and he does not have to die to win. The object 
is laudable, but a right thing may be done, or attempted in a wrong 
way, and ten to one the Board or the company will freeze and for- 
feit him out. 

The greater his poverty the worse his health, the more dire his 
necessities the greater the probability they will do it. In fact he 
must have both health and money to commence to wage with the com- 
pany ; the Board will only ask him to put up the premiums. One is 
as respectable and as good morals as the other ; in fact both are im- 
moral. 

(5). If there was anything in this argument, the charity and 
providing feature of the insurance, then the mutual and co-opera- 
tive plans would be the true one. But even it is easily demonstra- 
ted to be based on no principle but selfishness and short-sighted 
selfishness at that, no just or true principle in it. For at the best 
it is admitted to be only a combination of the strong or able to help 
each other for help in return. "If 3 T e do good to them who do good 
to you, what thanks have ye? Do not even the publicans so? It is 
unchristian, uncharitable and false; arty such a combination in soci- 
ety is unjust to the rest, for it is in so far as it is for each other 
against the rest. 

At the least the very essence of charity is, that the able shall 
help the weak ; but here the obligation is that the able shall help the 
able, first at least, a d for lndp again. For no person in failing 
health so as to be likely to become an actual object of charity can 
gain admission to one of them In fact tiny are no more or less 
than "mutual" and "co-operative" selfishness and as usual such mo- 
tive of action soon overreaches and punishes itself. For in twenty 
years from to-day not one of these companies now in existence will 
be here. For they are built on the quicksands of selfishness and 
they cannot stand. 

(6.) The test and touch stone of a usage, law or principle of 
business is, if it is just and upon a true principle it may be univer- 
sal in its benefits and burdens to all persons and still it will be 
healthful and just. Try the entire business by this test and it fails. 



157 

Suppose government would enact, a law that upon the death of the 
head of every family, it should he paid the sum of $1,000. What 
would be the result? If all did in fact pay their share of tax that 
would have to be levied to do it all would be in fact injured by the 
tax to the amount it cost to levy, collect and distribute the fund. 
For it would be taking- from the family just that much more than 
would ever be returned to them. Or if, as is always the case, some 
failed to pay their share of tax, and it was carried out, the system 
would only put a premium on idleness and indigence. 

And from every view it is in the end self-condemning. That it 
seems to do well in special instances may be true. The proceeds of 
a speculation on the Board of Trade, may in some instances do the 
same. 

(7). The enormous sums of capital accumulated by the old 
line companies in the business shows them to be frauds and an im- 
position on society. True they sometimes lose and pa}' wagers or 
policies; so do the lottery schemes as one of the best advertisements. 
And these companies you will find put the losses they have paid in 
bold type for the same purpose. The capital now held and used by 
these companies in this country as stated by themselves is $425,- 
(t»o. 000 in round numbers. ' : Net surplus" they give at $65,000,- 
000. 

With the older and richer companies life insurance is only a 
secondary matter. They now begin to compete with the Roths- 
childs and other usurers of the world. They are like gamblers who 
have made great fortunes in "shoving the queer;" who many re- 
spectable wives, join, at least become brothers-in-law to a respecta- 
ble (?) church and run the whole business. He may practice his 
old time vocation for amusement, or on a good subject ; so do these 
companies their life insurance. 

Their main business is to influence and corrupt legislation, so 
as to dodge taxation and loan money. In the Western States, 
where the farms are covered from five to twenty dollars deep to the - 
acre with their mortgages at 6 per cent to eight per cent interest and 
(3 to 12 per cent commission, they do not pay a cent of taxes. And 
in in nine out of ten instances they do not pay taxes on the money 
in the State of their residence. If they do pay taxes there it is un- 
just; for their loans in these western States are an investment, pro- 
tected by the law and the courts of these States are used to enforce 
their obligations. In these States resident capital and money is tax- 
ed ; but these good Samaritans are so sought for they are invited to 
come and stay like the churches and cemeteries, free from taxation, 
and they are about as easily filled and satisfied as the cemeteries. 

Their loans compounded at six per cent by re-loans double each 
ten years without regard to commission. 

Take their assets at this rate for a period of forty years and see 
what you have. 

And under their charters they are to loan only ; the}* do not 



158 

choose to own property that might be taxed ; that is a burden of one 
and a half to two per cent. 

Fire and other assurance against accidental lire, lightning, 
earthquakes, tornadoes and floods is legitimate. But it ought not to 
be in the hands of private persons or corporations as a source of 
private gain. At this time the business is done in this country by 
about one hundred and eighty companies, who claim to own about 
$88,000,000 of capital. Net surplus $76,000,000 in round numbers. 
Assets $164,000,000. Statistics published by themselves show the 
American people paid the 177 companies in business in this country 
in the year 1887, in premiums the sums $90,500,000. The same 
statistics show they paid the people the same year in losses the sum 
of $55,276,000. 

And it thus appears by deducting the "losses" from the premi- 
ums there was paid these companies that year the sum of $35.224..- 
000 for management of the business of property insurance, equal to 
sixty-three per cent of the entire sum of losses paid ; that is the 
sums of $200,000 to each one of the '77 companies then in busi- 
ness. 

That is an outrageous showing for a free, intelligent commer- 
cial people. But what would be better? is the question. Let the 
United States enact a general law, providing for a commensurate 
fund to be raised by taxation to meet the purpose ; that is to all 
losses occasioned by earthquakes, floods, tornadoes and great city or 
other fires where the loss is so general and so great as to burden the 
country where it occurs. Provide a simple, plain remedy for prov- 
ing the losses and certifying them to be paid to the proper depart- 
ment and officer. And for sake of safety in all other cases, such 
as accidental fires, fires from lightning, explosions and other acci- 
dent when the owner is not guilty of culpable civil negligence let 
him file a petition in the circuit or some court of record to be des- 
ignated in the county, and be required to prove by a clear prepon- 
derance of the evidence his loss to be found by a jury. The proper of- 
ficers to defend all such cases to prevent the perpetration of fraud, 
and not to exceed 66 per cent of the actual loss to be paid in any 
case, except such as are in law from the "Act of God" and provi- 
ding that it may be less, if any degree of negligence by the claim- 
ant is shown ; costs to be awarded to prevailing party, all such losses 
to be paid out of a fund to be raised in the county. 

It might be well to provide that the losses in all cases should lie 
proven up in the local or. state courts and then when the losses were 
shown to be of a nature to be payable from the general fund of the 
United States provide a simple way for certifying them to be paid 
Under this system all would have insurance without regard to poli- 
cy, there would be no expired or lapsed policies. A man would be 
insured under the law ; it would be in fact a Christian mutual char- 
table "bearing of each other's burdens,'' saying to those of our 
fellow-citizens upon whom crushing losses fell, do not be cast down 
or overwhelmed; we are all united and strong; we will parcel your 



159 

loss out among us, so many of us, none of us uill scarcely feel it. 
And we would not. The insurance of all in the Republic would 
not co t as much as we now pay, for perhaps one half of the prop- 
erty . 

The expenditures of the War Department and for pensions 
both, for the year 1886 was $97,729,016, only $7,229,000 more 
than tlie sum paid by the American people tor ''premiums'' r,o the 
companies, for the year 1887. 

The estimated cost of tin- Legislative department of our gov- 
ernment as stated, by the Secretary of the Treasury of the United 
Stales, for the year " 1887, was $3,'275,828. 1 he Executive Depart- 
ment for the same period was estimated at 818,491,311. The Ju- 
dicial Department for the same period was estimated at $408,300, 
or a total of $22,174,439. Or 13,000,000 less than the cost of the 
"management' of the property insurance of the United States, as 
done by the 177 companies in 1887 The sum paid these companies 
for the item of "management" alone, that is, attending to the busi- 
ness, in the year 1887, according to their own figures, would sus- 
tain a standing army, in the United States, of 117,401' men at a cost 
of $25. per month, or $300. per annum per man A pretty good garri- 
son is it not for the one item of property insurance? Then add to 
this the $64,000,00(1 paid the Life Insurance companies per annum 
for "premium'' and we have an addition to our standing (or sitting) 
army of Insurance agents of 210,000 more or a Grand Army of 327,- 
OOU men. But these Life Insurance companies claim they pay cash 
$30,(100,000 of the 64,0(io,()(Hl in "claims on policies. ' Well, admit 
it and then the grand sitting arrm of Life Insurance agents is only 
113,333 men and the entire body reduced to 250,000 men, quite a 
garrison to support for the one item of property and life insurance. 

And this burden the American people pay because they do not 
regulate the business by law. 



CHAPTER XV. 
Paternity and Centralization in Government. 

Every measure to check and limit the undue iufluenceand power 
of private and corporate capital in relation to the subjects of trans- 
portation, money and land, is met with the argument it tends to 
paternity and centralization. in government; it is too much interfer- 
ence and soon government must do everything. That it tends to 
suppress or discourage the enterprise and genius of the people 
and must end in a too great centralization of power. 

ThesH are proper considerations when applied to the right 
subjects. 

But as applied to us and our form of government in that behalf 



160 

it is, if anything, an argument against the spirit and form of the 
very constitution. 

There are two extremes, too little as well as too much govern- 
ment. The argument is that these subjects of transportation, mon- 
ey, land and insurance are too great, too much involved in them, 
too much power used in regulating these subjects, and that 
too directly effects the citizens to be entrused to government. 
If it gets this power it will grow to overshadowing extents and crush 
private rights. 

As we have, seen our government consists in the powers conced- 
ed by the citizen to society and exercised by the duly chosen or 
appointed agents, as indicated in the constitution. When the citi- 
zen enter the state of society regulated by law he is compelled to 
cede some natural rights and powers to be exercised by it. 

Under the constitution the lirst one ceded is the right to frac- 
tionize our society for any political, law-making, interpreting or ex- 
ecuting purpose. All such subjects are to be acted upon by "we, 
the people of the United States. '' He cedes the natural right of re- 
dress of his wrongs and defenses of person and property except in 
case of actual personal trespass or assault; and this function exer- 
cised by government becomes the judicial department. 

The same of the law-making and executing power. Also of the 
right, at least the power, of barter from hand to hand, and every 
other property right goes with the law-making, interpreting and 
executing power. 

Our constitution is a compact, the citizen is one, society the 
other party to it. Our government consists of the acts and doings 
of the agents chosen under the constitution in protecting the inter- 
ests and rights of the citizen on one hand and society on the other. 
And the argument of paternity is simply one against the spirit, in- 
tent and form of our government. It insinuates at least that our 
form of government cannot be entrusted with so much power; it will 
grow exacting and will encroach and trench upon private rights. As 
we have seen the whole structure from "turret to foundation stone" 
is held together, by faith, trust, confidence. It is this faith leads 
the citizen to confide to his government the right and power to pro- 
tect his interests, and society could not lie established in any other 
way. 

And these against such confidence are alwa3 r s the arguments of 
the elements who do not want to submit to constitutional and legal 
limitations upon their acts and doings ; these are always the argu- 
ments of the men and classes of men who have no faith themselves, 
in God or man, and who are unwilling to submit their claims to the 
rule of "do to others as ye would that they should do to you." And 
the argument in regard to transportation and money by incorporate 
greed and capital is that now in the process of time under the con- 
stitution, these two great interests of society have developed and 
grown up to be so powerful they have grown from under govern- 
ment regulation and in fact it would be dangerous to ally them and 



161 

government as to management. In a word carried out to its legiti- 
mate conclusions it is that our form of government has been tested, 
in part at least, and as to these two great subjects it is a failure. 
For here are two subjects that are of the very essence of the polity 
of a civilized society subjected to its control by the constitution and 
our form of government cannot be entrusted to attempt to manage 
them ; but here it must be supplemented by private management 
and control to protect private right from government "paternity and 
centralization." The citizen from the nature of the case can have 
no control over these subjects only through it, and it is the duty of 
government to exclude private ownership and control. It may as 
well be argued that government cannot be entrusted to "borrow 
money on the credit of the United States" or "to regulate com- 
merce" as that it cannot be entrusted to regulate these two means 
by which commerce is accomplished. For the fact is there can be 
no society, no commerce, without transportation and money. 

These two great factors will be and remain right here among us 
growing in importance and power every j 7 ear and will be controlled 
b} r private or public and agents and the power will be the same and 
is the same in the hands of the one or the other class of agents. 

And outside the constitution it becomes a cpaestion of choice 
between the two classes of agents. If it is too much power for gov- 
ernment, we suggest it is too much power for private control. We 
may concede that both classes are men, and one as a class as good 
as the other. But still these controling considerations are in favor 
of government control. 

1. The government agents will not own the property or have 
any interest in or expectation of gain from the management of the 
property and service only to do duty and gain the salary. 

2. They will be under oath and bond and responsible and gov- 
erned by law. As to the second class, first, they elect themselves, 
second, they own the property, third, they hope to and do make un- 
conscionable gains on their "watered stock" and management. 

3. They make, interpret and administer their own law, are re- 
sponsible to no one. It is simply corporation dust thrown in the 
eyes of the masses of the people by a clr.ss of men who have and 
still propose to set themselves above the constitution and law to en- 
able them to follow the dictates of their ungovernable greed of gain. 

It is an argument not against any abuse, or practice of republi- 
can representative self-government, but against its very letter, spir- 
it ami form. An attempt to sow the seed of popular distrust that 
would if grown to full harvest choke out and destrov it. 



—162 

CHAPTER XVI. 

To Gentlemen of the Bar. 

Where the common law, the jury sj-stem and constitutional lim- 
itations upon political power obtain foot-hold, the court-house is a 
school house and you are school masters of civil and religious liberty. 
You put the law into living words and make living applications of 
it to causes. 

You put the machinery of the courts in motion and draw from 
them the judgments and decrees that determine to the minds of the 
people the great subject of mine and thine. You enforce Irv illus- 
tration the subjects of vested rights and contract, the majesty of 
the law and the truth that in obedience to it only is their safety. The 
very study of history necessary to any proficiency in your profes- 
sion, leads and schools you in the trains of thought followed by the 
statesman. The very study of your profession leads you to investi- 
gate and classify the general truths of history, leads you to contem- 
plate the conditions under which institutions grow or decay and how 
they have grown and decayed in different ages of men ; how civil and 
religious liberty have been gained and how they have been lost. 
Your study has led you to observe that the original cause that led to 
great changes in the affairs of men were further back than appeared 
to the casual reader of history. That for years, a century it may 
be, the conditions of the political atmosphere had been portending 
a storm. The crash and whirl of the civil revolution came on like 
the avalanche. It has been coming for days, months, maybe years; 
but it was only a tendency at first; a melting away of supports, a 
mere tendency to move, a silent one at that; but at last comes a day, 
an hour, when it seems it does move, and with a vengeance in roar 
and thunder. All great political movements and revolutions of so- 
ciety are indicated at first by only silent tendencies. Sometimes 
their greatest results are accomplished in silent constitutional trans- 
itions. 

If you have studied the lessons of history taught by other 
countries you ought to study the lessons taught by the situation of 
our own. You cannot but see that in the last twenty years aggre- 
gated and incorporate wealth has made such strides in encroach- 
ments upon labor as were never made in any other country in the 
same length of time. In that time the original rules of interpreta- 
tion of the charter and powers of corporations has undergone great 
innovations and changes. 

It is no use any longer for a private suiter to raise any ques- 
tion as to their powers, questions of ultra vires. 

For if he does the courts say to him — no matter if it be so; 
"no one can take advantage of such abuses of their charters and 
powers, but the sovereign power of the State." 



-163- 

It is well known the "sovereign power 1 ' of the state, that grant- 
ed its charter, ten to one is another than the one where it viciously 
violates it, and the rule is simply a mild way of absolutely denying 
justice. While this is being written a great railroad corporation in 
Missouri, in open violation of her constitution and laws, has formed 
a "Land and Town Company," is to r day engaged in buying lands 
along the line of its roads, plating and "booming towns," and "spec- 
ulating in town lots," notwithstanding the Supreme Court of this 
State said directly, in the case of Pacific Railway Co. vs. Seeley, 45 
Mo. 212, no such company in this State could do it. 

So it goes all over the country. At the present rate of en- 
croachment it would seem these artificial persons would soon de- 
mand the right to vote, marry and be given in marriage. These en- 
croachments and usurpations are now to be held and exercised under 
the cloaks of regulation by "Commissions." We have Railroad and 
"Insurance Superintendents'" and "Commissions." They are an 
easy-going slipshod way of seeming to do and yet doing nothing; 
they are another name for the exercise of "prerogative" of almost 
unbounded power. We ask you, as lawyers, to define the legal and 
political status of one of these "commissions." To what department of 
government do they belong? the law-making, interpreting, or exe- 
cutng? An examination will show you in an hour that none of 
them belong to any one of these three ; they are a species of cross, 
hybrid, or mule — a legal nullius fHUus, without pride of ancestry 
or hope of posterity. Where is the place for you in any of them, to 
file a suit for relief to a private suiter? How can you know what is 
the law as to "reasonable charges," that may or may not be violated? 

Suppose you do, between the "commission" and corporations 
find out what the law ; s, and that it has been trampled under foot 
and your suit is filed; where are you to have a trial? before whom? 
and what is your judgment to be? In truth you know there is no 
place for anything but a "parley" with the corporation on one hand 
and the uncertain legal or illegal quantity, or personages called for 
euphony a "commission'' on the other. You or your client may 
stand by the side of your valiant "commissioner," carpet-bag in 
hand and ' chip in" at times in the "parley." It is all a fnrce in ev- 
ery respect, to everybody, but its actual co3ts to the tax-payer. As 
a court it is not even a respect ble "bureaucracy," — does not reach 
even that dignity. It suppresses the public cause, enforced by pub- 
lic trial and the voice of a living advocate. The corporation judges 
and "commissions" do not have time to listen often to the clamour 
of oral argument. In these "commissions" there is no time or place 
for it. It better suits the enterprise of another class of talent — the 
professional lobbyist, — the class of lawyers who succed in applying 
the law to the case, rather than the case to the law. 

The solon of the state legislature who makes himself useful to 
the overgrown corporations, as a law maker and lobbyist before the 
"comnvssioners" and assessment boards or boards of equalization of 
assessments, without regard to any other qualifications, takes the 



164 

corporation attorneyship, on a gilt edge salary. The real advocate, 
who disdains his tricks and subterfuges, is at a discount. The lob- 
byist appears with tinted paper briefs, with an air of wonderful pro- 
fundity, and looks down with ill concealed disdain upon all who do 
not countenance his methods. He informs you "nothing succeeds 
like success," even if it is "selling your birthright for a mess of pot- 
tage." It is high time a halt be called. We must do it or do worse. 
You see it as plainly as auv patent fact. It may be easier to drift 
with the tide, but after awhile the roar and whirl of the civil cata- 
ract, or ma3lstrom. will break on our ears Our fathers made the 
declaration and gained our independence over the direct assumptions 
of absolute prerogative. 

But the declaration of independence and its conflict against 
commercial and financial serfdom to aggregate and incorporate capi- 
tal comes a century later. It falls on our time, you cannot shut 
your eyes to it if you would. As Patrick Henry said in the Virginia 
House of Burgesses, "Gentlemen may cry peace, peace, but there 
is no peace ; the war is actually begun." True, as yet there is little 
blood shed ; and yet, we have as many as ten outrageous shootings 
by corporation thugs, ten times as outrageous and bloody as the 
"Boston Massacre," that filled our fathers with such indignation. 
We are, on the confines of a commercial, a financial, a political rev- 
olution. 

That is now a determined fact ; the only thing unsettled and 
undetermined is whether it will be confined to legal and constitu- 
tional methods and means ; confined to the forum of justice and rea- 
son or go to the form and arena of force. And that will be deter- 
mined by the prompt action and conduct of the considerate and 
patriotic men in our country, who can if they will, conduct 
us through the crisis without resort to force. But if the Herr Most 
anarchists at one end of the situation and the capitalistic anarchists 
at the other are to be permitted in the future, as they have in the 
past twenty years, to be the only heeded expounders of the relative 
rights of labor and capital, they will carry the cause and us with it, 
into the arena of force. The capitalistic anarchists are the more 
dangerous class of the two; they are the minority, the insolent, the 
powerful, the encroaching class. They are the '•patrician," the "stom- 
ach" element of our political economy ; the stomach, the baggage and 
provision train, the camp-followers and sutlers have mutinied, rebell- 
ed and turned on the main body of the army of society. It Avould 
be ludicrous if it did not accomplish and threaten such dire results. 

The rank and file, the main body of society, go whispering 
about, in rags and whining in poverty and underliving, while bloat- 
ed sutlers and money changers and gamblers, wagon and baggage 
masters cut grotesqe Falstaffian figures with cocked hats, spur 
and whip. They crack their whip and "round up" the rank and 
iile to vote once in four years ; that is to receive their party "brand" 
and "belonging" as the "cow boys" do their herds on the plains. — 
And woe betide the political steer, the fanatic, that raises his caudal 



165- 

appendage shakes his head, refuses to be branded and starts out on 
a course to form another political herd or party. The cow boys of 
a venal ignorant press go after him ; they ply him with hot irons 
and "brands" of vile names, until lie has neither hide or hair to 
receive the impress of another. But there must, there will come an 
end to this. The stomach, the sutler, the bag and bag-gage train 
will grow more and more relentless in its measures. The greater 
the coward the more cruel his methods; history shows that women 
as tyrants are more bloody than men; the "squaw'' is more merci- 
less than the "brave," the "clergy" as a class than the secular pow- 
er, and the same of sutlers, the hospital nurse, the baggage master, 
the mule whacker, the miser, the usurer; the shylock takes his 
"pound of flesh from nearest his heart, for so it is written, in the 
bond. ' 

After nwhile the rank and file of society will turn on the sut- 
lers, camp followers and gamblers of the army of society and then 
what "a fall will be there my countrymen." in usury, income, in 
reasonable charges for freights ; what a scattering among the Sllt- 
lers and gamblers; they will be put to the rout, horse, foot, ambu- 
lance sleepers and Delmonico on wheels, boots, bottles and fine ci- 
gars. 

But in our humble opinion nobody will be hurt. "Marry incom- 
ing on" Falstaff and his body guard and baggage train will have "the 
eramp ;" he will call for a commission and parley, indeed he has that 
now: the whole commission family are the rear and vanguard the 
wardens of his train. The three departments of constitutional self- 
government are made and based in the nature of things; that prin- 
ciple cannot be violated without endangering the integrity and safe- 
ty of the whole fabric. It is not technical, it is a matter of sub- 
stance as you know. And these commissions are conglomerations 
of the functions of each the law-making, interpreting and execu- 
ting powers. These corporations, railroad, insurance and banking 
have grown so great and absolute in demands that the ordinary pro- 
ceedings under the constitutionally appointed agents and depart- 
ments, one to make, one to interpret and one to execute the law, 
have grown inadequate to meet the case, they say. 

And a kind of nameless nonentity, with no defined power, not 
belonging eitherto the legislative or law-making department, and yet 
having a sort of law-making power in regulating "reasonable charg- 
es:" a sort of judicial authority to interpret the law and yet no 
power to try a cause, empanel a jury or render a judgement. In 
short, a sort of corporation, legislative, judicial constable or smell- 
ing committee on wheels, rolling over the State or United States. — 
It is a costly method of compelling the corporations to do as they 
please. It is no more or less, examine for yourself. 

"The preservation of free government requires not merely that 
the metes and bounds which separate each department be invaria- 
bly maintained, but more especially, that neither of them be per- 



166 

mitted to overleap the barrier, which defends the rights of the peo- 
ple. 

The rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment exceed the 
commission from which they receive their authority and are ty- 
ra ts. The people who submit to it are governed by laws, made 
neither by themselves nor by any authority derived from them and 
are slaves." — [Madison. 

"The powers of government shall be divided into three dis- 
tinct departments— the legislative, executive and judicial, each of 
which, shall be confided to a separate magistracy ; and no person or 
collection of persons charged with the exercise of power properly be- 
longing to one of these departments shall exercise any power properly 
belonging to either of the others, except in the instancesin this con- 
stitution expressly directed or permitted.'' Distribution of Powers, 
Article III Constitution of Missouri. I challenge all the corpora- 
tion lawyers in the State to point out any exception in the Constitu- 
tion of this State that authorizes the mixture of legislative, judicial 
and executive functions that are attempted or pre 1 ended to be vest- 
ed in the "•Superintendent of Insurance" and the "Railroad Com- 
mission" of this State. 

To the contrary it is expressly provided in Sec. 14 of Article 
XII that "The General Assembly shall from time to 

time, pass laws establishing reasonable maximum rates of charges 
for transportation and enforce all such laws by ade- 

quate penalties." That principle of "distribution of powers" as laid 
down in the Constitution of the State of Missouri and nearly all the 
other States is the fundamental one of the Constitution of the U. S. 
and is always kept distinctly in view by the Supreme Court in con- 
struing it. 

Do you not see in the board of commissioners invented and contend- 
ed for by the corporations themselves, the worm of human cupidity 
and absolute greed eating at the heart, silently it is true, of the tree 
of liberty? 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Strikes and Boycots. 

A word should net be said to discourage laboring men in their 
efforts to gain their rights. The spirit of resistance shown to class 
laws and tyranny is commendable, it is our only hope. But no abi- 
ding relief can ever be gained by the strikes and boveots as practic- 
ed for some years. In the first place who are laboring men and who 
are capitalists, between whom the real contest is waged and for 
what is it done? It is not a new one in the history of the world ; it 



167 

has convulsed society, in all ages, climes and conditions where civil- 
ization has reached a status, so that capital accumulated and popu- 
lations grew dense. 

But as applied to us where is the line between "Labor" on one 
side and '-Capital" on the other? 

Who may properly be called a "laboring man" a d who a capi- 
talist, under the existing order of things? For ours is in fact a con- 
test for the earnings, the reward of labor. It is the contest crowded 
upon us by the false principle we have discussed that "capital" as 
such has a right to earn income and thus compete with labor for its 
reward. 

Any man who owns capital sufficient to earn, as it is called, 
enough to support him and his from year to year without being sup- 
plemented by his actual daily toil and attention, may very well lie 
called a capitalist. 

He eats his bread in the sweat of his capital or other men's fa- 
ces : he will, ten to one, feel 'interested in continuing the conditions 
that enable him to do it. A certain class of much less means out of 
debt with a little bank account raise their empty heads to lofty 
heights and say "we capitalists," must all stand together. Especi- 
ally is this true of the class who hang upon the bounty of the usur- 
ers about cities, and a class who have a competence for the present 
i:i the rural districts. They seem utterly unconscious, that like 
tame sheep, they lick the hand that smites them ; the hand that can 
and does depreciate their property and that of the class to which 
they belong and annually reduce them to straighter and narrower 
limits of dependence and crowds them closer and closer to the rag- 
ged edge of insolvency. 

Every owner of less than twenty-five thousand dollar's worth of 
properly if not in money loaned at usury is in the true sense a la- 
bor: -i-.r m i i and his interests are identified from interest if no high- 
er motive with the laboring class. 

Nothing will carry conviction to the minds of a certain class of 
citizens but to see the value of their property shrink year by year 
and in spite of their toil, slip away from under their feet like April 
snow and feel the llutter of the rags of poverty in the cold winds of 
insolvency and bankruptcy. Then they begin to realize that all the 
conditions by means of class laws and usages set away from labor, 
from honest toil, like wind and tide, and set toward capital and the 
usurer to flot all labors reward to him. The line of insolvency, rags 
and poverty rises higher a id higher and annually covers more heads: 
the argument is making converts day by day ; the cancer is curing 
itself or is bringing about the conditions that will do it. The con- 
test is one between classes drawn on the line of wealth. The capi- 
talistic garrison is greatly in minority as to number of men, but 
vastly in majority in number of dollars and growing more so every 
day ; it is a contest between men and money, and every three to six 
thousand dollars of money or capital earns more income than an 
able-bodied man laboring 300 days in the year. But the minority 



168 

garrison are entrenched in a fortress of class laws and priviliges 
many centuries old. They are organized, they never ''strike" at 
each other. In nine cases out of ten, when laboring men "strike" 
at an immediate employer, they strike at an interest and a man on 
the same side the capitalistic fortifications as themselves; against 
men and interests that are suffering under the same causes 
as themselves; suffering because '-capital" "earnings" eats up all 
their profits. And the same of the boycot. There may be excep- 
tions, but that is the rule, Suppose you demand and strike for ten 
per cent, advance in wages, and gain it; ami it is actually a con- 
cession, for the time, by aggregated capital. What have you gain- 
ed? Incorporate capital, as now organized, and controling the 
transportation and money of the country, can, by raising the "reas- 
onable charges," of freights, by "controling the volume of the cur- 
rency, the money."' and consequent fall in wages, and driving men 
out of employment, cause them to compete with you for your places 
at a reduction, it may be, of twenty per cent, in your wages in six 
months. 

Your "strikes" and "boycots," if for the time successful, do 
not abate a tithe of the strength of the class privileges and laws! ha' 
are grinding you, as it were, between the upper and the nether mill- 
stones. 

Such "strikes'* are like a man in an iron cage, striking at the 
guard outside; if he injured or killed him all of it would be, anoth- 
er put in his place; he is only doing his duty for a living, and all he 
need do to ward off the blow, is to step back out of reach of the 
"striker" until he tires himself out. These "strikes" are likeagun 
that voids its breach at every fire ; it kills more men behind than 
before it. 

But you say, What shall we do? Strike for political organiza- 
tion! Strike for a full freeman's vote at the polls, and a fair count! 
Strike at the polls; strike at the class laws and privileges that bind 
you ; strike at the tools of incorporate greed that heretofore have 
"rounded you up" to the polls to vote against your interests. Eight 
years of such a strike will bring a second Yorktown, only it will be 
a bloodless field. 

History shows the class of men with whom you are compelled 
to contend are very careful to see that in their cause "their blood 
flows" on in their veins; — they do not choose to see their thick blue 
blood wasted on the ground. If they cannot hire one half the "ple- 
bians" to slaughter the other half, while they crawl in their holes 
with their gold and pull in the hole after them, and when the "rich 
man's war and the poor man's light is over, crawl out and come 
with the vvltures to rob the widows and orphans, it is always a 
bloodless field. 

The Senator Sharon, the Henry Ward Beecher. the Joseph 
Cook class of gentry, and many others who might be named, who 
have already threatened us with "the fiercest of civil wars," are 
brave as Falstaff in "coming on" the platform before an audience 



169 

of women and pious usurers who cheer them to the echo ; but "marry 
coming on" to the "civil war" he threatened "he has the cramp ;" 
in fact he is not very well himself ; he does not feel half so war like 
as his pious indignation would indicate, when he was "shoulder to 
shoulder" with the greedy, cowardly crew who cheered him. He is 
willing to "sacrifice all his wife's relations on the altar of his coun- 
try ;" yes, draft the poor devils who work for a dollar a day and bread 
and water for dinner, and water and bread for breakfast, and water 
and bread for supper, to fill the ranks. As for us we will stay at 
home and "scrape lint,'' with the women while they fight — -we will 
sing psalms and thank God for the victories. And when the war is 
over we will see that our class are all pensioned with bonds and per- 
petual debts, bank and railroad special class legislation, and prate 
for forty years how "we saved the country." 

Laboring men of America and Europe, that is the figure you 
have cut in the wars of this country and Europe of late. It seems 
to be about time you cease to be a like herd of cattle rounded up, 
to vote or fight not for but actually against your interests. For 
out of each you come with the yoke of "wage slavery" more close- 
ly fitted to your necks, as a class. If we are to have any more 
of it, we suggest to reverse the order once. Let us see how a "poor 
man's war and a rich man's fight" would seem. It would be a 
bloodless field; one "one laboring man" could bury all the dead in 
an hour. It would be a field strewn with bottles, cigar boxes, cards, 
crinoline and false hair of mistresses and empty cans. That field 
would look better than one strewn with the stark, stiff forms of poor 
fellows who died to preserve the flag and country for a future for 
capitalistic tyrants? 

The class who oppress you are the very class who marshal you 
out upon the hills to manure the. fields with your flesh and blood. 
Let laboring men of the world's republic set the world an example, 
strike for your rights at the poles within the constitution and the 
forms of law. Stand up and strike for your rights, shoulder to 
shoulder as citizens. Raise the Banner, "Do to others as ye would 
that they should do to you." We demand no more, we will accept 
no less? Strike at the poles for your hearth-stones, 
"Strike for your altars and your fires, 
Strike for the green graves of your sires, 
God and your native land." 

Incorporate capitalistic greed organizes against you one and all, 
— organize against it. To do this your platform must be broad and 
charitable enough to make room for every man who honestly seeks 
to make a living by "the sweat of his face." Millions of them are 
property owners ; if so and they use their property right they and 
you are the- stronger. But no fraction or class of our society can 
obtain any relief for itself or any one else. 

It will take a great civil uprising and upheaval in the use of the 
ballot box and the forms of law, to beat down the fortresses of class 
law and capitalistic greed. 



170 

It can never be clone by factious demagogues who roar to-day 
and to-morrow are silenced with a bone and crust for private 
needs. It must be a calm, deliberate, dignified, persistent purpose 
of a life time if need be. 



CHAPTER XVIIL 

Supply and Demand — Ovek Production. 

Supply is the entry, demand is the egress door to the market. 
If products of labor carried in at one, are not paid for and carried 
out at the other, the market becomes too full, and we are told there 
is an "over production ;" and the producer at one and the consumer 
at the other end of the line suffer. The market is the half-way sta- 
tion between them ; here the barter or exchange of products is made. 

Soon as the producer, who depends on his product for a living 
can no longer have market and sale for his product, he ceases per 
force of circumstances to be a consumer. This very common and 
growing complaint of labor of late is explained by the class who rob 
it of its just reward with the high sounding term of "Over Produc- 
tion." That is to say, if it means anything, that after God and na- 
ture have blessed labor, with the reward of plenty and to spare at 
the half way station in the "sweat-house" of the market its product 
has turned to an offense and yields no return to him who had more 
or who has less than his needs and in separation they suffer. That 
is the meaning of the doctrine ; they want you to take their word 
for it. 

When you read it in their speeches and papers you must take it 
as the ox does his master's voice. 

As a fact, in this country we know the farmers of the west of- 
ten burn corn to keep from freezing while the miners of the east 
would fain eat coal to keep from starving. That you see is an "over- 
production" of corn and coal. It takes four bushels of corn to 
freight one from the producer to the consumer. 

In nine out of ten instances every "over production" will be 
found to come from some such causes. 

Yes, do not charge your distress to a just God and his provi- 
dences ; look to the conspiring classes who thus would destroy your 
faith in God and man, so they may isolate, insulate and rob you. It 
comes from the machinations of short-sighted private greed in using 
and abusing the means to accomplish the great fact of the nation's 
commerce, the transportation an d the money of the country. It 
comes of government abdication of its rightful control of these 
branches of the public service. It comes of the "earnings," of capital 
that earns more than labor and robs it of its just reward. 

From the moment the product leaves the hand of the producer, 



171- 

yes, and before it is besieged all along the line in turn, by the car- 
rier and the usurer for "my income" until before it reaches the con- 
sumer, it is eaten up perhaps among them and then they call it 
"over-production." 

Thus labor famishes in the land and in sight of plenty, while 
the usurer, the common carrier, the speculator on the Board of 
Trade, the Life and Fire Insurance Company classes the class as a 
whole, who "raise nothing in the country but hell," gamble for its 
reward. And when nothing goes or comes to it they call it an 
"over production." 

If labor lives through the drouth, the flood, the chicken and 
hog cholera, the murrain, the grasshoppers, then comes the cor- 
ners" on the market more dire than all; then comes the usurer and 
demands his "income" no matter of whom it "comes out," then the 
common carrier. And on Sabbath if he chooses, he may hear a 
"sweet singer" of the usurers in a church ornamented with a mort- 
gage with a "paid up policy" on his life, a through first-class excur- 
sion ticket for the "heated season" to the Garden of the Gods in 
his pocket, with his pews well filled or owned by usurers, distillers, 
brewers, bankers, insurance and railroad corporation officers, saloon 
and bawdy house landlords, "thank God we are not as other men." 
Over production, yes in these lines of human endeavor to get some- 
thing for nothing. Over consumption here, under consumption ev- 
erywhere else ; over-surfeit here, underfeeding and living among 
those who produce that on which they surfeit. 



CHAPTER XIX. 
Taxation and License. 

A tax is a "contribution imposed by the government, upon the 
individual v for the service of the State " The constitution of the U. 
S. declares all such burdens shnll be according to value and uniform. 

When the citizen becomes a party to the social compact and 
cedes to society the right, and it accepts the obligation of protecting 
his person and property, he imposes on himself the obligation to 
give it material support with his means. All of us have persons, 
— some more, some less, some no property — to be protected. As to 
propertv, reason and the constitution say that when nothing is giv- 
en, nothing shall be required. 

What, then, are the legitimate subjects of taxation? (1). Is 
the "poll"* the head or person one of them? Society has no right to 
tax a citizen for a possession or right it does not confer or protect. 
Nor does it have a right to tax a citizen for the protection of rights 
of such nature that every human being must, and does receive the 



—172 - 

very same kind and degree of protection; for instance, snch as the 
protection of person. This we must, and all do have in common, 
without regard to place, circumstances, state or possessions. A tax 
levied for the protection of such a right, is as illogical as it would 
be to put a tax of one dollar on each human being when born; or 
to attempt to assist the citizens by a payment of a sum of $100 or 
any other sum to the legal representatives of every person when he 
died, the sum to be raised as a tax. It is seen at a glance in any 
and all such instances, that neither society or the citizen is bene- 
fited, but both actually are burdened and injured by it, to the ex- 
tent of the labor and cost of levying, collecting and paying out the 
tax. In support of the person or poll tax, it may be said that socie- 
ty assists to the end, by its regulations in regard to marriage and 
divorce, that a person shall be well born; that is not born on*, of 
wedlock or the offspring of prostitution, incest or miscegenation, 
and free from the infirmities of body and mind they entail On the 
other hand, it may be said, these regulations are mere acts of self 
preservation on the part of the race, like the acts of ship-wrecked 
passengers and crew, pumping to keep afloat and for mutual preser- 
vation. And no legal obligation for such service so rendered ever 
arises in favor of one person against another when m tual preserva- 
tion of being was the common object. But as to property just such 
obligation does arise in favor of the one who at severe service or 
great peril saves another's property. It is administered in sen, farina- 
operations, and is called ''salvage. ' But it extends only to property. 
And if an individual cannot, by such services put another under ob- 
ligations to him, neither can they do it collectively, or as society, 
and we conclude that the "poll'' or head tax, set on a man's being 
is illogical, illegal and unjust. 

And another fact to be remembered is, the pott tax is never 
levied for that purpose — the protection of the person hy law, but 
always for road and street purposes 

(2 ) Ought the home and homestead furnishings and utensils 
be exempt from taxation? Society does not confer any natural 
rights on the citizen if it does protect us in the enjoyment 
of them. 

It does not confer on us land, air, light, water or the relation of 
husband and wife, or parents and children; but it is its dniy to protect 
us in the enjoyment of all these rights. Every human being has 
the natural right to living and subsisting room on the surface of the 
earth; that is to make and maintain a home upon it; it is as perfect 
a right and as natural an one as the right of marriage, for the pur- 
pose of the propagation of the race. And to deny the former, in 
effect defeats the object of the latter. They are both natural rights, 
— not confered by society; but they are of such nature that all hu- 
man beings mur>t from the nature of ihe case, enjoy them to the 
same extent, to the end that society may exist. 

Man is entitled to a home on the surface of the earth, in a sav- 
age state and usually gets it; socety does not confer the right of 



173 

the family and home of the citizen and since it is right all must or 
ought to have and enjoy equally, we conclude that the homestead as 
such to a minimum extent and value ought to be in law, and in jus- 
tice is, exempt from taxation. It is just like a tax on the person or 
on any other right or privilege that all must enjoy for society to ex- 
ist. It is exempt on the very same principle that public buildings 
and roads, parks and improvements are exempt. That is that they 
are for the common good, and one and all have a common 
and eqnal interest in them. Hence it is illogical and a work of su- 
perogation to tax one common interest to fill the coffers to support 
another one . 

And outside the reason and justice of the thing, it is a measure 
of public policy and economy to encourage and protect the building 
and sustaining of the homes ; tends to common and public thrift, 
morality and the prevention of pauperism and crime. The dictates 
of justice, morality and humanity never part company along this 
line . 

(3) What then are the proper subjects of taxation? And we 
answer all those rights, privileges and sources of income that are 
both conferred and conserved by society. All the property above 
the homestead exemptions and the learned and professional occupa- 
tions, and the writer is a lawyer. My profession would not be in 
existence or lucrative but for society I choose it before all others ; 
it is no more than just that a reasonable tax be assessed upon it to 
help support society, the entity that creates the conditions that 
makes the profession possible and lucrative, and so of others. And 
all property and property rights above the homestead are the chil- 
dren of societary conditions and protection and make it bear the 
weight of the burdens of its mother society. The more a man has 
the more taxes he should pa\ and the easier it is for him to do it, 
even at a higher rate. And put on the "income tax'' in an increas- 
ing ratio to keep pace with the increase of the "income." 

If capital as such were not permitted to have accretion and in- 
crease the "income tax" would be unjust. But since it does, the in- 
come tax does not do half justice. Look a moment at the present 
unjust assumptions of capital! The owner of $100,000 demands 
income annually on it of at least five per cent, or if 5,000; the sweat 
of his capital earns that. A common laborer with a family at $3.00 
per day and no sickness and working 300 days in the year cannot 
possibly lay by to exceed $300. And the $5,000 income of the cap- 
italist that comes right out of labor's annual earnings and produc- 
tions can come from nowhere else, eats up the $300 income of 166 of 
these laborers. 

But he and his class demand and enact laws to tax the laborer's 
home if he has any, or to keep him from ever getting one if he has 
not, by taxing the one rented to him, and that the landlord adds to 
his rent ; and then in addition to all levies a "poll-tax" of one to 
three dollars to build roads round and through the possessions of 
himself and class. And all that after every cent of the income of 



174 

the 166 men has been eaten up by $5,000 income of the capitalist. 
He calls it a potency, a personage as capable of earning and claims 
it does earn more than the 166 laborers and demands income on it 
for its sweat ; make him, make all those assumptions good to the 
assessor as well. He is at an unconscionable advantage over the la 
borer, even if his capital as such in usury and rents did not earn a 
cent. Put the income tax on him and the learned professions and 
let the little homes of God's poor go free 

Of course the owners of homes must pay the expenses of mak- 
ing and recording surveys and transfer of the title, but no other tax 
as such ought to be put on them. 

Akin to taxation is the subject of licensing. Society has no 
right to tax any primitive industry, such as agriculture, building 
habitations, preparing food, clothing or utensils; or any calling that 
teaches the young and imparts general information to the end that 
each succeeding generation shall know more of all its duties and re- 
lations, moral, social and political than its predecessor did. 

But it is also made a cover and a pretence to compromise with 
and lend the sanction of the law to occupations that are actual 
crimes against society, such as prostitution and the liquor traffic. 
Some of our good citizens we expect are not aware that prostitu- 
tion as such has been actually licensed in some of our great cities. 
It was done in St. Louis in the year 187 and was maintained. 

Women were charged a license fee and registered as such; and 
charged a fee to pay a scab of society called for euphony a "doctor ' 
to make stated rounds to the "houses" to examine the inmates and 
if entitled give them certificates of bodily health, if not order them 
to the hospital for treatment until restored and then she might have 
another certificate. The moral sentiment of the State revolted and 
kicked the hell born crew of "madams," 'doctors" and the rist, at least 
out of legal toleration and recognition. But it still gives ley al tolera- 
tion and recognition to the ante-chamber, the vestibule, the lower 
floor of the bawdy house, its twin sister, the dramshop. And the 
cities of the United States are full of establishments, dramshops on 
the first and bawdy houses on the second floor. 

And pious (?) deacons and usurers collect the rents with marked 
stated punctuality on Saturday night and go to church on Sunday 
and "thank God they are not as other men '"' 

The laboring men and women of this country must understand 
that the usurer, the rent racker and the liquor traffic make common 
cause against them all along the line. 

They well understand the alliance all the time and act on it 
even if you do not. John Sherman, the Judas of the people's 
cause, had the impudence to introduce into the 'Rump Corporation 
and Millionaire's Parliament" the Uir'ted States Senate, a bill provi- 
ding that the national bankers might loan money to the own- 
ers of bonded whiskey to enable them to pay their United States 
taxes on it, and then permit the banks to roll the whiskey in their 
cellars or other safe place and deposit it in lieu of U. S. Bonds as 



175 

the law now is, as basis to secure their issues of bank notes. 

That is, bottom the currency and business of the country on a 
sea of alcohol. This old reprobate has fought for twenty years to 
destroy the $340,000,000 of legal tender notes bottomed on the hon- 
or, patriotism and property of the great American people, but was 
willing to do that to join in unholy wedlock these two enemies of so- 
ciety, the usurer and the traffic, and then thought they surely would 
make him president. 

The Supreme Court of Missouri says of the license paid by the 
dramshop keeper, "the license fee exacted by the general law reg- 
ulating dramshops and the act amendatory thereof is not a tax 
within the meaning of sections 1 and 3 of Art. 10 of the Constitu- 
tion, but is a price paid for the privilege of doing a thing, the doiDg 
of which the legislature has a right to prohibit altogether. 

Such laws are regarded as police regulations, established by the 
legislature for the prevention of intemperance, pauperism and crime 
and the abatement of nuisances;" and are not regarded as an exer- 
cise of the taxing power. "Pursuits that are pernicious or detri- 
mental to public morals may be prohibited altogether or licensed for 
a compensation to the public." It does not follow be- 

cause the license fee is large, or because it may become a part of the 
public revenue that it is therefore a tax. Many fines, penalties and 
forfeitures become a part of the public revenue of the State that are 
not derived from taxation." State vs Hudson, 78 Mo. 304 That 
is, it is a compromise with a species of crime against society that 
"spreads intemperance, pauperism and crime," "a price paid for the 
privilege of doing it;" a transaction in which society or the gov- 
ment says, you may do it if you will divide blood money with us. 
And wh«n the dramshop keeper or his sattellite, the ward or county 
shyster asks laboring men to petition the authorities to grant a 
license for a saloon, they ask them to levy a special tax on them- 
selves to pay the taxes of the saloon and bawdy house landlords and 
other property owners. 

If it is granted the keeper pays the license fee into the treasu- 
ry as so much tax, say $1,000 per year — he now is out that, he must 
have a barkeeper at §600 per year, and at the lowest figure he must 
make $2,000 for income and to keep up expenses, that is he must 
have at least $3,600 per annum, and he levies this sum on his pat- 
rons. 

Who are they as a rule? You know laboring men, your wives 
and children know too well. It is you on whom he levies and off 
whom he collects as a class every cent of it; and you stand up at 
his bar and pay it. For- what as a rule ? The vilest decoctions of 
goat's horns, old shoe soles, tobacco stems and fusil oil that ever 
burned and rotted the coats of a human stomach. And you pay the 
regulation 5 or 10 cents evary time you drink. Suppose while you 
are drinking and paying, mayor, mugwump aldermen, mug, grog 
and magog and Col. Pod Auger and Shyster Bnzfnz, fanning their 
red, bloated taces, inarch in. Mr Dramshop Keeper is wreathed in 



-176- 

smiles down to his apron ; he snatches your money and shabs yon 
out , he beckons the late arrivals back to the coolest and cosiest cor- 
ner in the concern, and does he offer them the vile stuff that tortur- 
ed your parched gullet? No, indeed, they would scorn it. He draws 
out the special decanter with a fine article and fans the flies off of 
them while they suck it iced through a straw. And they in 
return make arrangements then and there to lower or renew his li- 
cense and to "round up the voting cattle" at the next election to 
vote for their old masters, the usurers, the saloon, the bawdy house 
landlords and the liquor traffic. And you men pay the bills for the 
ice, the fine wines, the straws, the fine cigars, the rents, the usury, 
in short for the whole establishment And on Sunday you walk out 
to the park or other public resort with your wife in faded calico, 
your children barefoot and there is Madam Saloon Keeper making 
faces at you, rustling in silk, stinking in pomade, and her children 
dressed in the height of fashion, paid for with your money as a 
class. Don't you think you ought to rush up or be lead up to sign 
the petition of Jake Sniggle, Fritz or Patrick OToole, for a license? 
Mo, in the name of God, Home and Native Land, men, be men, boy- 
cott the saloon, let it severely alone. Let Col. Pod Auger and his 
gang pay their own bills and do their own voting. 

The liquor traffic is one of the vilest monopolies in the civiliza- 
tion of to-day. 

Along with the rest it annualiy eats up labor's reward and the 
saloon is the headquarters, the recruiting office politically of the whole 
brood, who feast like crows and buzzards upon you. Boycott it 
men, in the name of your wives and children, sisters and sweet- 
hearts, in the name of your manhood. And the license, high or low, 
is a covenant with hell ; every one issued ought to be, in the sight of 
a just God it is written in blood and tears. It stains the stars and 
stripes just as much as slavery did. Shame on the national statutes, 
revenue and license laws that will say to a man who makes oath in 
the state of Iowa or Kansas or in the Local Option counties in Mis- 
souri, that he "intends to sell intoxicating liquors" at such or such 
a place in their boundaries and in violation of their laws. Shame, I 
say upon a national government that will say to such an insurgent law 
breaker and traitor to his state and its laws ; I know you intend to 
violate the laws of your state ; but divide before you commence ; give 
me a pittance of the fruit of your law breaking, your blood money, 
your "spreading intemperance, pauperism and crime," and you have 
my permission to go in with your state in a free fight, ar.d spread all 
of these evils you choose. That is the attitude to-day of the U. S. 
license and revenue law to the prohibition states and counties. — 
Shame upon it, it is akin to and black as ever were the blood hound 
slave refugee acts that disgraced our statutes in slave times. 



177 
CHAPTER XX. 

TO THE CLERGY. 

You will pardon the presumption, but you may learn something 
from a layman, as they may learn much from you. Your influence 
is great in a government composed as ours. You may not intend to 
"preach politics," but if you "declare the whole council of God," 
as taught in the new testament you are compelled to deal with and 
discuss great moral questions that enter into the great political issues 
of the times. 

Politics in a true sense is one thing, "party" is another ; with par- 
ty as such in the pulpit you have nothing to do. With the great 
moral questions that affect the moral and material welfare of socie- 
ty and and that may or may not enter the "party" strifes of the da} T , 
you do. Such was chattel slavery ; such is pol} r gamy, the law of di- 
vorce, and wage slavery in all its features. For wnge slavery is in- 
jurious to both the oppressor and the oppressed, as was chattel 
slavery. 

In some instances civil and municipal law Imve directly in both 
letter and spirit repealed the law of both the old and new testament. 
I shall here call your attention to but two. One in the matter of di- 
vorce ; there is but one cause for divorce according to the Christian 
rule, and either party who marries after divorce for any other com- 
mits adultery. Yet nearly all the states have numerous other 
"causes," and comparatively the pulpit is silent. Under the old 
testament law. given for the the government, of the "chosen people," 
a Jew was not permitted, to take usury or interest from a Jew, but 
might from a stranger. Christ said, "I come not to destroy the law 
or the prophets but to fulfill." Peter, Paul and the rest sa}*, there is 
"no more Jew or gentile and we are all one in Christ." 

If the privilege of the Jew over the "stranger" or Gentiles, of 
eating up his substance and that of his class by usury yet remains to 
:iny, will you please inform us, who are the Jews now? to whom 
this privilege belongs? The truth is, here is another instance when 
first custom invaded the law of Christ and the innovation was en- 
acted into law. The Christian church stood stoutly committed 
against it, until the sixteenth century. John Calvin was the first 
Christian minister or priest who ever undertook to justify its prac- 
tice. Its practice by the Jews in Europe caused them time and 
again to be driven from one country to another. 

In these persecuiions undoubtedly there was much of human 
cupidity, as well as religious belief. For then, as now, the practice 
of it, slowly, but surely, as surely as the duration of time, gathered 
the greater share of wealth of the products of the labor of the com- 
ix] unnity into the hands of the usurers. And when this abuse not 
only antagonized their religious belief, but actually reduced them to 
poverty and suffering, the earlier Christians, as bodies, arose and 



178 

ejected the leeches and drones of their hives, of society, with little 
or no regard to public form or law or private rights. 

And unless the encroachments of the usurers are checked by law, 
by civil and peaceable means, history will repeat itself. And next 
time it will take the shape of open hostility to the Christian church, 
as the French Revolution did ; unless the church takes her proper 
place and breaks the apparrent truce and in many cases real league 
with the usurers. I respectfully call your attention to the following 
old testament Scripture on the subject: 

USURY, INTEREST, INCREASE. 

Text: Nehemiah, 5th chapter, 6th to 13th verse. 

And I was very angry when I heard their cry and these words. 

Then I consulted with myself, and I rebuked the nobles, and 
the rulers, and said unto them, Ye exact usury, every one of his 
brother. And I set a great assembly against them. 

And I said unto them, We after our ability, have redeemed our 
brethren the Jews, wnich were sold unto the heathen ; and will ye 
even sell your brethren? or shall they be sold unto us ? Then held 
they their peace and had nothing to answer. 

Also I said, It is not good that ye do ; ought- ye not walk in the 
fear of our God because of the reproach of the heathen our enemies? 

I likewise, and my brethren, and my servants, might exact of 
them mone3 r and corn: I pray you, let us leave off this usun<. 

Restore, I pray you, unto them, even on this day, their lands, 
their vineyards, their oliveyards, and their houses, also the hun- 
dredth part of the money, and of the corn, the wine, and the oil, 
that ye exact of them. 

Then said they, we will restore them and will require nothing of 
them ; so we will do as thou sayest. Then I called the priests, and 
took an oath of them, that they should do according to this promise. 

Also I took my lap, and said, so God shakes out every man 
from his lap, that performeth not this promise, even thus be he 
shaken out, and emptied. And all the cong r egation said, Amen, 
and praised the Lord, And the people did according to this 
promise. 

If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, 
thou shalt not be to him a usurer ; neither shalt thou lay upon him 
usury — Exodus, 22nd chapter, and 25th verse. And again. 

If thy brother be waxed poor and fallen into decay with thee, 
thou shalt relieve him ; yea, though he be a stranger or sojourner ; 
that he mny live with thee. Take thou no usury of him or increase; 
but fear thy God, that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt 
not give him thy money on usury nor lend thy victuals for increase. 
Ye shalt not, therefore, oppress one another, but thou shalt fear the 
Lord thy God: for I am the Lord thy God. — Leviticus, 25, 3G. 37 
and 17. Again it is said. 

In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood. Thou hast taken 
usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbor 



-179- 

by extortion, and hast forgotten me saith the Lord thy God. — Ezekiel 
22nd chapter, and 12th verse. 

Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother, usury of money, 
usary of victuals, usury of anything lent upon usury. — Deuterono- 
my, 23rd ch., 19th v. 

He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he 
shall gather it for him that will pity the poor. — Prov. 28th ch.. and 
8th v. 

While it is said that a good man leaveth an inheritance to his 
children, it is also said that the wealth of a sinner is laid up for the 
just. — Prov. loth and 22nd. 

For he that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor 
he that loveth abundance with increase. — Ecclesiastics 5th and 10th. 

It is also said of the good man, that he putteth not out his mon- 
ey to usury, nor taketh a reward against the innocent. — Psalms, 
loth and 5th. 

Her princes in the midst thereof, are like wolves ravening the 
prey to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain. 

And her prophets have daubed them with untempered morter, 
seeing vanity and divining lies unto them, saying: Thus saith the 
Lord God when the Lord hath not spoken. The people of the land 
have used oppression and exercised robbery, and have vexed the 
poor and needy ; yea, have oppressed the stranger wrongfully, 
and I souggt for the man among them that should make up the 
hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land that I should not 
destroy it ; but I found none. Therefore I have poured out my in- 
dignation upon them ; I have consumed them with the fire of my 
wrath ; their own way I recompensed upon their heads saith the 
Lord God.— Ezekiel* 22nd ch., 27, 28, 29, 30th verses. 

This is strong language, but it is not mine. It is the language 
of righteous indignation at the oppression that always in all ages and 
conditions of men follow this practice. Have you declared the whole 
truth on this subject? This is the old testament. Read the new. — 
The law and the prophets were untilJohn ; since that time the kingdom 
of God is preached and every man presseth into it. And it is easier 
for heaven and earth to pass than it is for one tittle of the law to fail. 
— Luke, verses 15 and 17, chapter XVI. 

"And Jesus looked around about and saith to his desciples. how 
hardly shall they that have riches enter the kingdom of God." "And 
the desciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth 
again and saith unto them, children how hard it is for them that 
trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God." 

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than 
for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." — Mark, verses 
23, 24, 25, Chapter X. This young man of whom this was said 
whom "he loved" marked up higher on the standard of moral ex- 
cellence than any man, "who by usury and unjust gain increaseth his 
substance "can do ; for he had "kept the commandments from his 
youth up"' including, "Defraud not." 



180 

"Think not I am come to destroy the law or the prophets ; lam 
not come to destroy but to fulfill." 

"For verily I sa} T unto you, till heaven and earth pass one jot 
or one tittle, shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled." 
— Verses 17, 18, Mathew, Chapter V. 

"Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, come ye 
blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the 
foundation of the world." "For I was an hungered and you gave 
me meat : I was thirsty and you gave me drink ; I was a stranger and 
ye took me in." "Naked and ye clothed me ; I was sick and ye 
visited me ; I was in prison and ye came unto me." "Then shall 
they answer him saying, Lord when saw we thee an hungered and 
fed thee or thirsty and gave the drink?" "When saw we thee a 
stranger and took thee in or naked and clothed thee?" &c. 

"And the king shall answer and say unto them, verily I say 
unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of 
these my brethren ye did it unto me." "Then shall he say unto 
them on the left hand depart from me? ' "For I was ahungered and 
ye gave me no meat?" 

"Then shall they also answer saying Lord when saw we thee 
an hungered, or athirst, or a stanger or naked, or in prison and did 
not minister unto thee?" "And then shall he answer them saying 
verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the 
least of these, ye did it unto me." — Verses 34-45 inclusive, Mathew, 
Chapter XXV. He makes a personal matter of it and no mistake. 

He felt the indignity and insult of the enforced poverty of his 
class in his time ; more than once refers to it. 

"Beware of the Scribes which desire to walk in long robes and 
love greetings in the markets and the highest seats in the syna- 
gogues and the chief rooms at feasts." "Which devour widow's 
houses and for a show make long prayers : the same shall receive 
greater damnation. ' — Verses 4G-47, Luke, Chapter XX. "The 
foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the son of 
man hath not where to lay his head." "And he said woe unto you 
also ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be bon c 
and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers." 
— Luke, verses 46, Chapter 11. 

"Then said he unto the desciples, it is impossible but that offen- 
ses will come; but woe unto him through whom they come!" "It 
were better for him that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck 
and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these lit- 
tle ones."— Verses 1 and 2, Luke, Chapter XVII. There is but one 
letter and spirit in it all the way. 

He took these matters of every day living and doing home to 
himself and daily and hourly enforced them by precept and example 
upon his disciples. A true Christian minister can do no less. 

He cannot stuff himself with all the good things afforded by a 
modern market and a $10,000 a year salary, yes and less, all the 
week, and on Sunday stand up in a rich church in which the usurers 



181 

and oppresors of the people, men who "lay burdens grievous to be 
borne on other men's shoulders" devourers of widow's houses, loll 
at ease, who divide their extortions with him and preach them and 
himself to ease is Zion" and still claim to be a minister of Christ. 
For just such priests and ministers Christ denounced to their faces 
when he was here as "whited sepulchers, full of dead men's bones." 
Just such priests and ministers sought to put him to death, but said 
"not on a feast day lest there be an uproar of the people."' The 
United States and Europe have each more than a complement of 
such ministers. You do not need be named any more than Christ 
need name them in his day; they knew and you know very well who 
is meant and who you are. 

"You are known and read of all men." I will give you a state, 
an open secret, if will 3011 receive it. The masses of the public are not 
half so ignorant as you think. 

They have long since put you right where you belong, as the 
open allies of injustice, oppression and fraud, of "devourers of 
widow's houses." They class you politically right where the "third 
estate" the people of France classed their "clergy" on and prior to 
1789. The people soon learn who are their' friends; they do not 
want a class or a clergy to tell them how to save their souls in the 
next world who give aid and comfort and conspire with a class to 
rob them of the means whereby they live in this. We are glad to 
believe this class of clergy are greatly in minority in this country ; 
we are glad to know many have began to seize the situation and 
teach the real Christian doctrine on these subjects. Many of the 
clergy and their churches seem oblivious of how they are regarded ; 
they do not seem to know they are now classed as and called "close 
corporations." "By their fruits ye shall know them." and men 
soon classify men and classes of men and influences by their 
"fruits." If you would but open your eyes you might see them 
turn their backs on such "clergy" and their churches. When the 
feelings and sentiments of a class of clergy and churches becomes 
such it draws the lines of division on the money or the wealth line it 
leaves the masses of common people and Christ on the outside. You 
may say this is strong language — it is but not half so strong or plain 
as the following: "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your 
miseries that shall come upon you.'' "Your riches are corrupted 
and your garments are moth eaten." 

"Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall 
be a witness against } t ou and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye 
have heaped treasures together for the last days." "Behold the 
hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields which is of you 
kept back by fraud, crieth ; and the cries of them which have reap- 
ed are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth."- — Verses 1 and 
4 inclusive, James, Chapter V. And the voice of a prima donna in 
a $100,000 church with a $50, < 00 mortgage on it, seconded by a 
$20,000 organ and a $15,000 choir and, a sweet bit of a preacher 
with his hair parted in the middle and the most approved English 



182 

accent (aw) will not drown out that cry from the ears of the "Lord 
of Sabaoth." 

It is well to preach Christ as the "Lamb of God" and as a sac- 
rifice, but he has also another just as well defined character as the 
"Lyon of the tribe of Judah" and the avenger of his people's 
wrongs. Such a clergy united with the Nobility of France, when 
they and the king owned three-fifths of the land and three-fourths 
of the wealth, to put "burdens on the people's shoulders grievous 
to be borne," all the burdens of the State. 

And held them down under it until they were driven into the 
wild excess of the Revolution, Reign of Terror and Infidelity. And 
those wild and bloody scenes are now put by an intelligent and dis- 
cerning public, right at the doors of an apostate, greedy, cruel cler- 
gy, dissolute nobility and ignorant and brutal monarchy. 

No wonder the masses of the people became infidel : no wonder 
that in their rags and poverty as they beheld the revels and debauch- 
ery of the clergy and nobility whose motto was "after us the del- 
uge," the}' said, if this is the fruit of centuries of Christianity, come 
on — let us beat in the doors and windows of the churches, scatter 
the clergy and beat the altars into the earth. No wonder they re- 
pealed the Christian Sabbath and put up over the entrances to the 
cemeteries, "death is an eternal sleep." The clergy and nobility 
had for centuries repealed and trampled the law and spirit of Christ 
of "do to others as ye would that they should do to you" under 
their feet, had baptized the land in blood and violence of St. Bar- 
tholomews and persecutions ; no wonder the laity, the masses said 
the whole thing is a farce and we will away with it. It ill becomes a 
Christian minister to denounce Voltaire, Rosseau, Turgot and La 
Harpe, the Encyclopedists, and others as the morally guilty agents 
for all those scenes and doings. I suppose thousands like myself 
who have learned all they at first knew of these great civil commo- 
tions from a distorted, untruthful and anglicised presentations of it 
will be compelled to do as I have done, unlearn nearly all thus learn- 
ed and then learn the truth. 

But a truthful history and statement of those awful scenes, in 
spite of the anglicised, religious and secular history and press, in 
justice to the great French people, is at last reaching the American 
people. 

And although a certain class of clergy and theological students 
seem to know no better than to attempt to throw all those bloody 
and terrible scenes and doings upon and at the doors of infidelity, 
as such, yet all other informed people will lay these ghastly scene* 
and infidelity both at the door of an apostate, greedy clergy, a bru- 
tal monarchy and nobility, who for centuries had "sown to the 
wind" and in the cyclone of the Revolution "reaped the whirlwind." 

The "Encyclopaedists" of France taught and preached Christ's 
gospel of temporal salvation, "do unto others as }'0u would that 
they should do to you," in a very modified sense; they conceded 
too much to the clergy and nobility ; but taught the people to rise 



183 

and reclaim some of theit" natural and political rights. The clergy 
ignored this part of Christ's gospel and pretended to teach and 
preach "eternal salvation ; "and in fact did neither. The "Encyclo- 
paedists, Rosseau, Voltaire and others, as a class, in their teachings 
and pratices came as near being Christians as the apostate and dis- 
olute clergy, and they will always reach the hearts of the people, 
when such a clergy will not. 

"The best way to reach a hungry man is to strike him on the 
stomach with a loaf of bread." No one knew this better than 
Christ, and for this and his natural human compassion, he would 
not send the famishing multitudes away hungry, "for many lived 
remote," and "lest they faint by the waj-," he fed them. It be- 
hooves an intelligent, patriotic, American clergy, in this day, in 
this exigency of our country to see to it that Christianity and the 
the church do not stand before the people as in league with their ad- 
versaries. — To study and learn and declare the real cause of the 
Great French Revolution. For, to it we may look as the workings 
of some of the political elements that now are at unrest among us. True, 
the French people were then far behind us in general intelligence, 
and especially in lessons of self-government. But it was a civil com- 
motion ; a rebellion of an insulted, robbed, terrorized class by two 
classes of tyrants who stood one on one side and ihe other on the 
other, of the monarchy. 

It was a war of classes all in France. The people were attempt- 
ing to follow the path then so lately blazed out and trodden by Wash- 
ington and the Revolutionary Fathers. They had to contend with 
our enemy, England, and have been compelled to do it ever since., as 
the old political Jesuit and libeler of and intriguer against all good 
faith effort to establish republican representative self-govern me id in 
the world. 

She has industriously and incessantly stirred up strife and com- 
motion at home in Europe against all their efforts in that direction 
and slandered them abroad. When I speak of England in this sense, 
I mean the government and the governing class, — the class who so 
far controls her civil foreign policies and political career. 

The class who, clergy and laity, teach the anglicised perpetual 
debt, wage slavery system of established church anity. The class 
who will "protect" and "establish" any clergy, church or religion 
that will pronounce the benediction while it steals the land from un- 
der the peoples' feet and robs them. We have (aw) quite a sprinkle of 
that class of clergy (aw) and gentry in our republican household. 

In truth, until recently, that class have anglicised and to a great 
extent still do anglicise our literature, religious and secular. They 
stand as a unit, committted to the propagation of everything, En- 
glish and aristocratic, that distinctly is not republican, and have 
sounded the key-note to the religious and political anathemas that 
have' been hurled for years against the republicans of France, as in- 
fidels. If the American people would take a sober, second thought, 
they would remember that class of gentry and clergy who now (aw) 



184 

preach this "comforting doctrine, 1 ' were chaplains in the royal and 
hessian regiments, "who thanked God for victories," when the In- 
dian blood hounds murdered our fathers and ravished their wives 
and daughters on the frontiers. Who voted down Lord Chatham 
when he remonstrated with them. (See page 143). And then France 
and French republicans crowded into our armies to fight with us 
shoulder to shoulder, replenished our exhausted treasury, sent us 
arms and ammunition, received our ministers, with marked distinc- 
tion, fitted and sent out a fleet to relieve our ravaged coasts. And 
they were at Yorktown, on our side of the entrenchment when that 
class of "gentry" and "clergy" sheathed their bloody blades under 
their cloaks, their bibles under their arms, and gnashing on the 
young republic, left, saying through their clenched teeth, "we will 
come again." And they did come in 1812-14 and burned our capi- 
tol like savages, — -a piece of vandalism, the like of which Napoleon I. 
never was guilty. 

Napoleon and France ceded us an empire for a trifle, on the 
Mississippi, with a benediction and God speed ; this class of "gen- 
try and "clergy" waged the unprovoked war of 1812-14 and burned 
our capitol ; and in our late fratricidal war rejoiced in and bandied 
the sentiment, "the great bubble of American liberty has burst at 
last." And yet a class of American clergy never are done denounc- 
ing French republicans as infidels, for revolting and trying to follow 
in the foot steps of our fathers ; and attempt to blacken their memo- 
ries with all the wild excesses of those terrible times. 

And strange coincidence that anglicised class, as a "class" 
stand allied with and as defenders of all the capitalsitie English 
measures now used in this country to rob labor of its ju*f reward. 
A "pastorate" of that kind, when it has bloomed and fruited, if it 
ever does in the United States, will fill them as full of infidels as 
France ever was. Bartholdi's "Goddess of Liberty Enlightning the 
World," the embodiment of the sentiment and offering of republican 
Frenchmen to republican Americans, will haveten thousand tongues 
of eloquence and be heard ten times in the hearts of the people, 
when the yelping of "wolves in sheeps 1 clothing will not be heard 
once. It behooves those of you who minister among, and draw your 
support from the masses of the common people, to inform yourselevs 
and be equipped and ready to defend the interests of your class and 
its posterity in society. These encroacnments of one class in society 
upon the rights and livings of another are mere tendencies at first ; 
they come about, not in a day or a year, but in a series of years; 
the} T come as fall comes ; first a mere change of hue in the foliage, 
a tendency to decay rather than life. In society, the small farms 
and holdings, where families used to live and groAv to noble man and 
womanhood, commence to be absorbed into larger estates; the small 
homes and holdings melt away, sell out and are sold out under the 
mortgage, and the sons "go west, young man, to grow up with the 
country," or go out to rent a farm of Col. Podaugur, the usurer, who 
resides at the county seat, and is buying all the land joining him. 



185 

If you will lift up your eyes, yes and open them, you can 
see the sear and yellow leaf already giving the tinge and hue of 
autumn to the final prospect of your class in society. Your master 
was wont to talk very plainly on these subjects, as did his predeces- 
sors, the prophets, and successors, the apostles. The statistics of 
this country show that the ratio of the increase of its wealth, includ- 
ing increase in the value of real estate from improvement, — the most 
lucrative source, — has never been to exceed two and a half to three 
per cent, per annum. 

The average of tax is at least one per cent, on actual value, so 
that the ner, increase in wealth per annum is not to exceed two per 
cent per annum. What is 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 per cent, per annum 
but "income 1 ' on capital? And the man who reaps it, reaps and 
gathers to himself the natural, the actual legitimate increase on the 
capital of three or four or five other men, in turn, as investors of 
the capital he has "loaned" to them, and "he toils not, neither does 
he spin.'' Now look at (1), a perpetual public debt, virtually so in- 
tended by our anglicised usurers, lay and clergy to be; (2), Our state, 
municipal and private indebtedness — five to twenty dollars deep to 
the acre in the middle and western states; (3), $340,000,000 of per- 
petual usury drawing bank currency based on a perpetual public 
debt; (4), $3,882,966,330 as the "funded railroad indebtedness" of 
tiie country; (5), the means used to levy usury by by private indebt- 
edness and other means on the people; (6), the public domain and 
lands of the republic so distributed that one man "owns" a million, 
and a million men own no acre; and all the'.usuers, with ihe ceitainty 
of death, taxes and the duration of time demanding "my per cent" 
on "watered stock," "my income" my living out of the annual re- 
ward of labor and taking it according to law whether labor has left 
much, little or any. You may see, you will see the sere and yellow 
leaf. 

And. now these conditions will very fast grow more and more 
aggravated. Because (1) the public domain is being fast filled and 
occupied ; in fact little is now left for good faith poor men who 
want it for homes. (2.) Usury like a.snow ball, is annually rolling 
the wealth of the country to itself; each year it has a greater, a ge- 
ometrically increasing principal upon which to demand "income." 
Each $3,000 in money or capital "earns" demands and receives more 
of the annual reward of labor than an able-bodied man can earn. 

Capital never has "sickness in the family,'' it knows no Sunday 
or holiday ; it earns and grows while its owner sleeps ; it literally is 
eating labor, its creator, out of house, home and country. I heard 
an intelligent man of Iowa say "I can stand in the door of my house 
where I have lived for thirty year& and count thirty homes that in 
that time have been owned by respectable families in sight, that now 
are sold out under the mortgage and are gone and their homes pas- 
tured with cattle, or occupied by renters." Open your eyes and you 
may see the sere and yellow leaf as the exponent of the prospect of 
yourself and class. 



-186- 



CHAPTERXX. 



Our Sitting Army. 

Let us make an inventory of our sitting army as heretofore 
pointed out in these pages at annual cost of $300 per annum per 
man. 

1. Our railroad funded debt stated by tin m at $3,882,966,330 
at four per cent per annum, is $156,318,000 — and supports an army 
of 491,000 men. 

2. Our sitting army of insurance agents, attorneys and officers 
as shown ante page 155-9, is 250,000 men. 

3. Our National Bank army as shown ante page 104 is 1«5,000 
men. 

4. Our census and assessment lists showed in 1884, 3,500 mil- 
lionaires rated all the way from $1,000,000 to $200,000,000 each. It is 
safe to rate them at $3,000,000 each; at four per cent, they must each 
have $120,000 income annually ; this will support a battallion of 
400 men each ; and for the entire 3,500 it is only tin army of 1,- 
400,000 men. We cannot now take an estimate of the mortgage 
plastered western, northern, southern and middle States But it is 
safe to say that they are plastered on an average three dollars deep 
to the acre; Kansas is ten now by actual figures and other States 
nearly as bad. At that rate at six per cent per annum each seven- 
teen hundred acres -of plastered land supports in addition to all its 
other burdens one man of the sitting army at the rate of $300 per 
annum. Now let us inventory our sitting army per annum. 

1. Our railroad army, - - 491,000 

2. Our Insurance army, - 250.000 
3 Our Bank army. - - - - 185,000 
4. Our Millionaires 1 army, - 1,400.000 



Total sitting army, - - 2.326,000 

Do not talk any more about your standing armies; it is your 
sitting armies that are eating you out of house, home and country: 
that makes you ragged and hungry, that eats all the profit off of ev- 
ery legitimate business. There is a little over two men or this grand 
sitting army of the republic to each twenty-five souls, that is of 
women, children and men for them to support and that they do sup- 
port ; each twenty-five souls must and do contribute a little oyer $600 
each year to keep this grand a rim on its present footing or sitting. 
Who are you working for? For the yrand sitfng army of the 
Republ'c ! Who are you voting for"? For the grand sitting army 
of the Republic! Certainly ! 

You can see one of them any day, the flag of distress floating 
from the gable end of his trousers, his toes beneath peep like an 



187 

acorn from its sheath, his hair waving from t lie top of his hat, 
shouting himself hoarse for the recruiting officers of the grand sit- 
ting armies as they preach to him the comforting doctrine of "over- 
production." 

These are no figures of speech, they are plain, cold, naked, hun- 
gry facts. And they will annually grow colder, more naked and 
hungry. Your votes, men of America, have quartered that army on 
you, not "in your houses," makes you serve it in your own house. 
Its headquarters are in Wall Street ; its lieutenants and recruiting 
officers are the two great political parties and their leaders who 
have voted the class laws on our statute books that enable it to an- 
nually draw its supplies out of the annual reward of your labor. It 
means 48,000,000 "borrowers," "servants," serfs; 2,000,000 "lenders," 
"masters" and aristocrats, and it means it forever under the existing 
order of things. 



188- 



^APPENDIX. 



An Act to Provide For Comdemning Lands for Homesteads. 

Sec. 1. Whereas, private persons and corporations have ac- 
quired and hold titles to vast tracts of land, and in view of our rap- 
idly inereasing population, many families are debarred of the natu- 
ral and political right of acquiring lands on whieh to make homes, 
to the detriment of the moral and material welfare of society, and 
tending to increase pauperism ; it has, in view of this, become the 
duty of the government to exercise its right of eminent domain in 
the interest of the public welfare, and it is the duty of the law 
making power to exercise its right of eminent domain to the 
end that all citizens, by reasonable endeavor may acquire land for 
actual occupation and use for homes. And it is therefore declared 
that lands of private persons and corporations, native and alien, not 
actually occupied by any family in good faith, as, and for a home 
may be condemned for homesteads for families, as and for a public 
use and benefit under the conditions and limitations of this chapter. 

Sec. 2. The following lnnds may be condemned for homesteads 
for families, under the provisions of this chapter : 

(1.) That have not already been condemned within five years 
prior to the time the condemnation is sought. (2). If in the limits 
of any incorporated town or city, that are not in actual use in good 
faith, for some wholesale or retail business or some shop or manu- 
facturing establishment ; or in any block in any such town or 
city where at the time it is sought, one half of it is so used and occu- 
pied. (3.) In towns and cities of less than ten thousand inhabi- 
tants, no more than two lots of 30 square rods, each shall be con- 
demned in any case. In any and all other cities not to exceed one 
lot, and in all cases regard being had to the original plats, streets 
and alleys, and no fractions of lots to be made to the injury of any 
party. Provided that in cities of ten thousand or less inhabitants, 
the homestead of no owner shall be, by the provisions of this chap- 
ter, reduced to less than four such lots ; or in any city to less 
than two such lots. Nor shall any lands dedicated to any publio 
use, resorts for the public good, be so condemned, either in or out- 
side the limits of such towns or cities. (4). Outside the limits of 
towns or cities and within a radius of one half mile, not to exceed 
80 square rods shall be condemned; and outside that line, and with- 
in a radius of five miles, not to exceed five acres shall be condemned ; 



189 

and outside that line not to exceed fort}' acres shall be condemned, 
only in the states admitted into the Union within the last twent} 7 
years, the amount may be condemned that is now permitted by the 
law of each such state to be held exempt from debts, as a home- 
stead ; or if it has no such law, then 160 acres ; and in the territo- 
ries, 160 acres of land. 

And provided, that in no case land holdings of no owner shall 
be reduced to less than the maximum herein permitted to be con- 
demned ; and if lands of minors is sought to be condemned, their 
holdings must not be reduced to less than the limitation last afore- 
said, for each one. But the title of all lands belonging to minors 
not cast by descent, must be shown to be their actual property, by 
good faith, absolute and recorded conveyance. 

And provided, that the interests of mortgagees' rights in 
remainders and expectancy may be concluded by proceedings un- 
der this chapter so as to convey a good title for the purpose of this 
chapter on the petitioner. 

Sec. 3. Any head of a family may file a petition in any court 
of the city or county, in which lands sought to be condemned are 
situate that has jurisdiction of the subject of land titles. It must 
state the name and last residence of the petitioner, the number of 
his or her family, the name, residence and post slfice address of the 
owner of the land sought to be condemned, if known; if not known, 
that fact must be stated. 

It must particularly describe the land sought to be condemned, 
the interest of each and every owner, part owner, mortgagee, or oth- 
erparty interested therein and any other fact necessary to be shown to 
entitle the petitioner to have the lands condemned under the provis- 
ions of this chapter, and shall be verified by affidavit. 

Sec. 4. On filing the petition the defendants shall be notified 
by summons or publication of the pendency of the proceeding ac- 
cording to the practice of the court, and upon return of service of 
such process if defendant make default the court shall be deemed to 
have jurisdiction of the cause as in a proceeding in rem. And the 
cause shall be returnable to and tried at the first term after it is 
filed unless continued for good cause shown. 

If the defendant appears and denies the facts stated in the pe- 
tition, the issue may be tried by a jury or the court, either party 
having the right to trial by a jury of twelve men. In case of de- 
fault and proof the land sought to be condemned shall be appraised 
by three house and free-holders of the county or the territory in the 
jurisdiction of the court. If defendant appears and there is a trial 
the jury shall pass on the fact of and assess the damages for the 
condemnation if it finds all the other issues for the petitioner. 

Sec. 5. If the lands sought and subject to be condemned are 
improved the owner may elect to and remove any or all of such im- 
provements. But such election shall be made before the valuation 
if the defendant appears. Or if he do not appear he may so elect 
at any time in six months after the judgment of condemation isren- 



190 

dered and before any of the money for it is. received, but shall pay 
all costs of the re-valuation that may be required to be made by the 
three appraisers as in the first instance, but they shall value the im- 
provements sought to be removed only. 

Sec. 6. Any petitioner under the provisions of this chapter 
may, before the filing of his petition, tender to the owner of any 
lands subject to be condemned, such sum, in lawful money, as he 
thinks a reasonable compensation for such lands, or to his admitted 
agent, and allege and prove such tender and keep it up on the trial. 

And if the defendant do not procure the allowance of a sum 
greater than that tendered, the petitioner shall recover all his costs, 
and such tender and all costs to that date may be made with like 
effect at any stage in the proceedings as to all costs that may there- 
after accrue. In all other cases costs shall be paid by the petitioner. 

Sec. 7. — Upon judgment of condemnation rendered and pay- 
ment of the money due to the defendant or defendants in the pro- 
ceedings or if the defendants do not appear then to the proper officer 
to be designated by the court and entered of record in the judgment, 
the petitioner shall be put into possession by appropriate writ to be 
issued for the purpose : Provided that appeals from such proceedings 
may be had byeither party to the proper courts as in other cases. 



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